News

During Winter 2022-23, NCESD partnered with ESD 101, ESD 123 and ESD 105 to host a collaborative four-series course using children’s literature with the goal for educators to collaborate and model an integrated approach to climate change using reading and science together. Books selected for the course spotlighted a variety of perspectives on Climate Science, focused on solutions, and supported students with social emotional learning.

Through this ClimeTime-funded project, teachers received books, reading guides, and other resources and instruction to support their learning and teaching on the topics. The group was lucky to not only read the book “The Whale Child” by Lummi and S’Kallam authors Keith and Chenoa Egawa, but also get the chance to meet them and learn the story behind the book.

Ellen Kress Ebert, Director of Secondary Content Education at OSPI, was invited to attend the session featuring “The Whale Child”.

“It was a wonderful two hours of hearing the authors and teachers exchange ideas,” Kress Ebert shared. “In my breakout room, one of the teachers commented that she loved the literacy project because it gave her the ability to talk to other teachers from the central part of the state and to use books across the year that held her children’s attention while they were on the “rug” together. There is no greater praise for a well-designed program.”

In February, Kress Ebert shared this success story in climate science education in public schools alongside Science Coordinators from ESD 105, ESD 123, and ESD 171 during the STEM Education Innovation Alliance meeting.

The Alliance includes education and industry leaders that gather four times a year to discuss and advise STEM education, Kress Ebert explained. “We were given a very warm reception and our presentations were wonderfully received,” she added.

This project would not have been possible without the hard work, creativity, and dedication of ESD Regional Coordinators: Cari Haug (NCESD 171), Lorianne Donovan (ESD 123), Luke Matlack (ESD 105), and Tammie Schrader (ESD 101).

NCESD is so proud of the work Cari Haug, NCESD Regional Science Coordinator, does for our region’s teachers and students. Kress Ebert said it best: “Cari brings her passion for education and her expertise as an educator and scientist to her work at the NCESD. She has developed climate education professional learning that is unique and contextualized for the teachers and students in her region.”