View transcript
 My name is Jessica Parker. And I'm the Director of Teaching and Learning here at the Exploratorium. I oversee our K-12 professional learning programs for science teachers and science leaders here in the Bay area and across California. We've been working with teachers for over 40 years and we've made a commitment to support them throughout their entire career. Whether they're a beginning teacher just entering the profession a veteran teacher looking to develop their leadership skills or a science leader who is helping colleagues better understand and implement the next generation science standards. Our commitment to these educators is unwavering. Even as we find ourselves teaching and learning online at home. Our K-12 science leader network supports over 800 science leaders across California. These leaders then work with over 80,000 classroom teachers in their home districts to provide millions of California students with standards align phenomena based science education. We always invite educators to be learners and to gather their hands on experiences even when we're online we investigate the natural and design world in a deep enjoyful joyful way. We often start with everyday phenomenon and ask teachers, what do you notice? What do you wonder? Or What would you like to know? That's because we think the questions that you have about the world are important and worth investigating. And you can use the methods that scientists and engineers use on a daily basis like asking questions taking ongoing observations, making predictions collecting and analyzing data and creating conceptual models to make sense of the world around you. Although our education world has shifted online here at the Exploratorium we've been offering online workshops as follow up support for our in-person professional development workshops for over 10 years. So when the shelter in place order came we were able to easily shift to offer online workshops to our community of science teachers and science leaders across California. In fact we hosted a virus workshop on March 18th. We felt that we wanted to be responsive to teachers and that they were interested in learning more about viruses especially Corona viruses at that unique time. So not only are we able to be responsive to our community but we can also be a lifeline to those educators that found themselves teaching online when they never thought they would be. After the virus workshop a teacher reached out to us and said quote "I would have never expected to have been an online teacher. "And without your positive examples from the virus workshop "I don't know where I would have started." End quote. The virus workshop allowed us to model best practices for online science teaching and learning and reminded us that we're a professional home for science leaders and teachers. And at that moment we were a lifeline for educators who didn't imagine and weren't trained and how to teach science online. You too can investigate everyday phenomena with the over 290 science snacks we have online. This past spring we use the fractal patterns snack as a way to engage teachers in the science and math of these natural patterns. And for timely topics related to general science support for your virtual classroom or learning together at home we have the learning toolbox. Your online hub for a COVID-19 science spotlight and for educator and parent resources. There's lots more to explore on our website and we hope you can dive in and start asking yourself what do I notice? What do I wonder? What would I like to know? Your questions about the natural and design world are worth investigating. Thank you so much for supporting our work with science teachers and leaders for allowing us to continue to make a commitment to support them over the course of their career. Thank you for allowing our K-12 team to inspire science educators for generations to come.