ClimeTime
Teaching for the Climate Collaborative
offering Free Professional Development Workshops for Whatcom County Educators
For the 2023-2024 school year, our ClimeTime offerings will consist of five in-person workshops offered throughout the year. Two workshops will build on our combined reputations for offering programs in schoolyard settings. The other three workshops will dig deeper into place-based phenomena building on our individual organizations’ strengths: watershed and salmon and the role of circular economies in Whatcom County.
ClimeTime: Teaching Outside
Teach for the climate by including outdoor learning experiences in your classroom.
2 STEM clock hours + receive a $50 stipend upon implementation of an outdoor lesson.
Calling all Whatcom County elementary teachers and staff serving grades K-5 looking to integrate the outdoors into everyday lessons. Our Teaching Outside workshops are designed to provide teachers and other education staff with the basic skills and tools to implement outdoor experiential and climate-related activities on school sites, in local parks, and in urban settings.
Each workshop is stand-alone.
Objectives of Teaching Outside
Teachers will be able to evaluate the potential risks of teaching outdoors and plan appropriate measures to mitigate risks.
Teachers will be able to summarize at least one teaching outside activity and one teaching outside strategy that may be used while teaching students
Teachers will be able to apply course learning by implementing and reflecting on a lesson delivered outside to their classroom students.
2023-2024 Teaching Outside Workshops
Session 1
Thursday, March 21, 2024 | 4:30-6:30PM | Skyline Elementary (2225 Thornton St, Ferndale)
Last Day to Register: Monday, March 11, 2024 by 5:00PM
Session 2
Thursday, April 25, 2024 | 4:30-6:30PM | Irene Reither Elementary School (954 E Hemmi Rd, Everson)
Last Day to Register: Monday, April 15, 2024 by 5:00PM
Hope and Resilience
Calling all Whatcom County educators for grades 3–12 who want to connect real-world solutions to climate change! Bring climate hope and resilience into the classroom!
3 STEM clock hours + 1 Equity hour, $100 stipend*, and various teaching materials.
2023-2024 Hope and Resilience Workshops
February 2024 workshops are open to Whatcom County teachers grades 3-12. Teachers receive 3 STEM clock hours, 1 Equity hour, a $50 stipend, and a delicious lunch!
Watersheds and Salmon
This field-based workshop will focus on equitable solutions currently being implemented in Whatcom County. The Teaching for the Climate Collaborative will guide participants through classroom-ready STEM activities that illustrate how climate change is affecting different stakeholders and ecosystems. Community members will share their expertise in developing solutions.
This workshop is designed to answer the following questions:
What are the effects of climate change on salmon and our watershed?
What are community members, tribes, CBOS, etc. doing about it in Whatcom County?
What are the Indigenous Ways, currently and since time immemorial, to solve these issues?
Saturday, February 10, 2024 | 9:00-1:00PM | Location TBA
Last Day to Register: Friday, February 2, 2024
Circular Economies
One solution to the climate crisis is the development of circular economies, a system based on the reuse and regeneration of materials or products. This field-based workshop will focus on equitable solutions currently being implemented in Whatcom County. The Teaching for the Climate Collaborative will guide participants through classroom-ready STEM activities that illustrate how circular economies work. Multiple community members will share their expertise in developing solutions.
This workshop is designed to answer the following questions:
What are the effects of climate change on Whatcom County?
What are community members, tribes, CBOS, doing about it?
How does the investment in circular economies reduce climate impacts, specifically in Whatcom County?
What are the Indigenous Ways, currently and since time immemorial, to solve these issues?
Saturday, February 24, 2024 | 9:00-1:00PM | Location TBA
Last Day to Register: Friday, March 1, 2024
Bring it to the Classroom
You’ve learned the material, now, how do you implement it with your students? This 2-hour workshop will provide time and resources to assist you in lesson planning, as well as collaboration time to generate ideas about how to help students take action.
This workshop is open to participants who attended a February 2024 Hope and Resilience workshop. Teachers receive 2 STEM clock hours, $25 stipend for attending, and $25 stipend upon implementation.
Objectives
Teachers will plan and prepare a lesson or unit that highlights local climate solutions.
Teachers will collaborate to create a digital forum for sharing ideas about how to help students take action.
Thursday, March 7, 2024 | 4:30-6:30PM | Location TBA
Last Day to Register: Wednesday, February 21, 2024 at 5PM
*Participants who attend one Hope and Resilience workshop, attend Bring it to the Classroom and implement a lesson receive $100 stipend.
We hope to see you at one of these opportunities. Please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions.
Teaching Outside: Nicola Follis (nicola@wildwhatcom.org)
Hope and Resilience: Priscilla Brotherton (Priscillab@re-sources.org)
climetime program overview and history
In 2018, the Washington State Legislature created a proviso to support climate science in education. The Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) in partnership with the University of Washington offered grants to host “ClimeTime” professional development for teachers focused on Next Generation Science Standards, climate science, outdoor education strategies and an increased emphasis on traditional ecological knowledge through indigenous partnerships.
Wild Whatcom has joined with other community organizations including Common Threads, Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Association (NSEA), and RE Sources four years in a row to lead teacher professional development opportunities through the ClimeTime proviso to teachers of Whatcom County. We’ve also partnered directly with the Lummi Nation and Northwest Indian College to incorporate Indigenous Ways of Knowing and environmental justice aspects to the teacher training.
“I am so excited to take my classroom outside this spring to dig into all of the rich content that was introduced through this course - thank you!”
Each year we serve over 120 teachers.
Teachers have reported positive changes about their knowledge, behavior and attitudes about putting outdoor learning and climate science into action in their classrooms.
“Thank you. This course really helped me develop an understanding of Indigenous ways of knowing. I am so excited to continue the work in my classroom and also continuing to learn about the Coast Salish ways of knowing that I can integrate into my units of instruction. ”
Click here to see more about five years of ClimeTime.
climetime in the news
“In 2017 the Washington state legislature passed a multi-million dollar budget proviso for K-12 science education with an emphasis on climate science. The result was ClimeTime, which funds projects and events that connect public school teachers with environmental organizations in their communities, as well as teacher trainings like the one outside Olympia.
At the end of its first year, an estimated 7,500 public school teachers, mostly elementary school teachers — or just over 1 in 10 of the approximately 66,400 public school teachers in Washington state — had taken advantage of professional development resources made available through ClimeTime.”
support our local teachers today
Thank you to OSPI for initiating and funding this project and for our local partners for your ongoing inspiration, thought partnership, and collaboration. We are eager to continue working with and supporting our local public school teachers together!
Interested in supporting efforts like this one? Consider a donation to our work today!