By the end of this course participants will…Understand how local phenomena interact with the Next Generation Science Standards, climate change, ecosystems, and people in a community.Experience how local phenomena and field investigations can build scientific understanding.

In this virtual professional development opportunity designed for teachers, EarthGen explores two global crises taking place concurrently - the climate crisis and COVID-19. What are the connections between the two? Why are BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) communities disproportionately affected by both? Educators receive foundational information around climate justice, analyze the variables associated with vulnerability, exposure, and risk, and explore educational resources to bring this content into their classrooms.Contact EarthGen at info@earthgenwa.org for more information.

This online calculator converts from one energy unit to another - from gallons to British thermal units (Btu), kilowatt/hours to megajoules, short tons to metric tons.

In this activity, students learn about the energy sources used by their local utility provider to generate electricity, and work in small groups to evaluate the sustainability of either a renewable or non-renewable energy source used to generate electricity.

Global Forest Watch is an interactive, online forest monitoring and alert system that provides users globally with the information they need to better manage and conserve forest landscapes.

The ocean's resources are slowly being depleted. This curriculum examines the issue of overfishing and its impact on both the environment and human life. In developing sustainable solutions, the students address the driving question: "How can we as youth, sustain the future of the world's ocean through our actions today?"

The Wasted: Don't Trash the Earth curriculum asks students to examine the impact of the waste we locally and globally produce and seek creative solutions to reduce this wastefulness by answering the driving question: "How can we, as youth, rethink waste?"

The activity for high school students aims to display the importance of water quality and how nanotechnology can be used to help purify the water. 

Day 3 of the Nanotechnology and Water lesson and Day 2 of its associated lab displaying how water quality can affect living organisms.

The activity for high school students aims to display the importance of water quality and how nanotechnology can be used to help purify the water.

The activity for high school students aims to display the importance of water quality and how nanotechnology can be used to help purify the water.Day 5 includes analysis questions that cover content from Nanotechnology and Water Days 1-4. 

Students will engage in learning about the function and benefits of coastal wetlands and their role in adapting and mitigating rising carbon levels and sea level rise. Spatial and interactive planning tools will support students in collaboratively designing solutions to enhance coastal wetlands.

Patterns Biology is the culminating course in the 3-year high school Patterns Science sequence. Patterns Biology focuses on three-dimensional (3D) learning through culturally responsive, phenomena-based storylines that intertwine the disciplinary core ideas of biology with the scientific and engineering practices and crosscutting concepts as described in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).

The Patterns High School Science Sequence (https://hsscience4all.org/) is a three year course pathway and curriculum aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).

Each course utilizes:
- Common instructional strategies
- Real world phenomena
- Design challenges to engage students and support their learning.

For more information, contact us at info@pdxstem.org.

The curriculum is a combination of teacher-generated and curated open-content materials. The Teacher-generated materials are shared freely under a Attribution-NonCommercial-Sharealike Creative Commons License.

Students experience the steps of the engineering design process as they design solutions for a real-world problem that could affect their health. After a quick review of the treatment processes that municipal water goes through before it comes from the tap, they learn about the still-present measurable contamination of drinking water due to anthropogenic (human-made) chemicals. Substances such as prescription medication, pesticides and hormones are detected in the drinking water supplies of American and European metropolitan cities. Using chlorine as a proxy for estrogen and other drugs found in water, student groups design and test prototype devices that remove the contamination as efficiently and effectively as possible. They use plastic tubing and assorted materials such as activated carbon, cotton balls, felt and cloth to create filters with the capability to regulate water flow to optimize the cleaning effect. They use water quality test strips to assess their success and redesign for improvement. They conclude by writing comprehensive summary design reports.

Students build a watershed model to define what a watershed is, identify the different parts within a watershed, and discover how water moves within a watershed. After learning Best Management Practices and mitigation techniques, students rebuild their models.

This activity describes the flow of carbon in the environment and focuses on how much carbon is stored in trees. It goes on to have students analyze data and make calculations about the amount of carbon stored in a set of trees at three sites in a wooded area that were to be cut down to build a college dormitory.