Welcome to 2024

Happy 2024 and welcome back. We hope the winter break allowed time for rest and reflection on the positive impacts you've had on student learning and that you feel recharged. We thank you for your continued dedication to K-12 science education and to every student you serve. Please do not hesitate to reach out if you have any questions.

New K-5 Newsletter

ODE’s Office of Teaching, Learning, and Assessment is launching a new quarterly newsletter for K-5 educators. This newsletter will provide resources, opportunities, guidance, and ODE updates tailored specifically to support the integrated and well-rounded instruction that elementary education entails. It aims to streamline information related to K-5 academic standards and instruction into one convenient communication. 

Please subscribe or share the link with K-5 teachers who might be interested.

Elementary Science Resource

Rise and Thrive with Science - Teaching PK-5 Science and Engineering is a free practitioners’ guide using relevant classroom examples. This guide includes supports needed to implement effective and equitable instruction for all children and elevates the deep connections to develop their language skills and literacy while engaging in local context and phenomena.

This free download, developed under the National Academy of Science, Board on Science Education is an accompaniment to the previously released The Brilliance of Children and Strengths of Educators interactive website and includes a full report. In addition, ODE released Oregon's Early Literacy Framework to provide coherence, clarity, and common ground for high-quality, comprehensive early literacy education statewide. Below are some elementary-focused resources that support both the statewide literacy vision and science education:

• Using Science to Bolster Literacy Skills in Elementary Education - This resource explores opportunities for teaching literacy by increasing interdisciplinary connections between science and literacy.
• Science in Elementary Classrooms for Oregon Administrators - This self-guided course is designed to guide administrators, particularly those in K-5 schools, in thinking about science education in their buildings and to provide background on and fundamentals regarding the Oregon Science Standards.
• What does subject matter integration look like in elementary instruction? Including science is key! - This resource leverages students’ natural curiosity and builds strong knowledge-bases in other content areas.
• K-5 Elementary Storylines - This website provides examples of lessons driven by students' questions and building skills to explain their thinking and understanding of phenomena.
• Engaging English Learners in the Science and Engineering Practices - This tool explores how science learning supports language development and how to leverage students' interests and identities. 
• NGSS Bundled Topics in Elementary - Bundling is a helpful step in implementing standards as it can support coherence and connections between concepts and topics. This resource provides guidance on how to group standards in K-5.

Science Instructional Materials 

ODE staff, in collaboration with ESDs, hosted five in-person opportunities to review instructional materials. If you were unable to attend or are interested in reviewing the science adoption list, publisher contact list, or the science instructional materials virtual caravan, please visit the ODE Adopted Materials by Content Area webpage.

If you have any questions about the adoption list or need additional support with instructional materials adoption, please feel free to review these instructional materials toolkit resources or reach out to Aujalee Moore or Jamie Rumage.

2023-2024 Science Assessments Available

OSAS Science Summative Assessment test window is coming up for Spring 2024

• The OSAS Science Test is aligned to Oregon Science Standards (NGSS).  Students are required to take the OSAS Science Test in Grades 5, 8, and 11. Your child’s school will select testing dates between March – June (Grades 5 and 8) and February – June (Grade 11th).
• Students will encounter a mix of test items, including multiple choice, multiple select, simulations and more. To help them get familiarized with the various question types and interactions that they may encounter during the test, ODE publicly releases and offers Sample Tests for practice.

Oregon’s Interim Assessments in ELA, Math, and Science are now available for the 2023-2024 school year.

• Schools and districts may administer these assessments to students in-person or remotely. Information and professional learning resources to support test selection, administration, scoring, and data use are available on ODE’s Interim Assessment webpage. 

Contact your District Test Coordinator (DTC) to activate interim assessments. Please contact Mariela Salas Bao, Science Assessment Specialist, with questions or support needs.

Sustainability and Climate Change Educational Resources 

• Visualizing Energy: The Boston University Institute for Global Sustainability provides an open access science communication project that aims to increase actionable knowledge about a sustainable and just energy transition. This is an interdisciplinary project with an emphasis on science data, history, equity, and well-being.

• Smithsonian Science Education Center: The Earth Optimism ten-part education series includes videos and lessons on steps towards sustainability and the impact of optimism. 
• Smithsonian Science for Global Goals Project, which provides youth around the world, ages 8-17, with the knowledge and skills to understand the world’s most pressing issues and to become agents for change in their own communities. Through a series of freely-available community research guides, young people use their communities as their laboratory to investigate the science that underlies the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 
• STEM Teaching Tool Practice Brief: Think globally, act locally: Promote the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through community-centered learning explores opportunities to study local issues and understand how these issues use global sustainability practices.
• The STEM Teaching Tools has a collection of resources (playlists) for climate learning and setting a vision of science education for administrators and classroom educators. In addition, the website hosts professional learning modules that were designed in collaborations with state science supervisors, administrators and classroom educators.

National Youth Science Academy  

The National Youth Science Camp (NYSCamp) is an all-expenses-paid residential honors program for two high school students from each state, Washington, DC, and participating international countries.

Hosted in Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia since 1963, the National Youth Science Camp (NYSCamp) is a residential science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) program designed to honor and challenge some of the nation’s rising leaders and provide them with opportunities to engage with STEAM professionals and participate in exciting outdoor activities. The science camp runs from June 29 - July 20, 2024. Typically, two delegates are selected to attend camp from each state and the District of Columbia. Oregon is actively seeking delegates to represent our state; encourage your students to apply today!

The deadline for eligible high school students to apply is February 29th, 2024. For more information about eligibility or to apply, please visit the NYSCamp website.

NOAA B-WET Grant Opportunity

The 2024 Pacific Northwest B-WET program is an environmental education grant program that promotes place-based experiential learning for K-12 students and related professional development for teachers. The deadline to apply is February 1, 2024.

Green Ribbon Schools Applications 

The US Department of Education Green Ribbon Schools program is designed to encourage and celebrate efforts made by schools and districts to incorporate best practices for a green education environment. To learn more, watch this video from Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona. 

Completed applications are due to Michael Lammers on Thursday, February 1, 2024, by 11:59 PM PT. Full details on the eligibility, requirements, and access to the district-wide or PK-12 school applications can be found in the Green Ribbon School Introductory Memo. 

Please do not hesitate to reach out to Deb Bailey or Kama Almasi, STEM Education Specialists, Mariela Salas Bao, Science Assessment Specialist, or Jamie Rumage, Science Education Specialist, if you have any questions or concerns.