Integrating the Social Studies Across Colorado History

This day-long workshop emphasizes core concepts and tools from history, geography, economics and civics in Colorado's fourth grade Social Studies Standards. An expert in each subject area will help you understand how each discipline views the world and, more specifically, Colorado. Presentations will blend content and pedagogy and will share resources to take back to your classroom.

Date & Time: Saturday, October 7th, 8:30 am to 4:30 pm

Location: History Colorado Center in Denver

Register at the History Colorado website.

Gunnison River Teacher Institute

Looking to expand your curriculum? Check out the Gunnison River Teacher Institute Field Based Course offered by Western State Colorado University! 

When: June 19th - 23rd, 8:00am-6:00pm 

Learn how to incorporate rivers into your curriculum, creating relevant context and connections for your students. This five-day, field-based course includes water management, river ecology, fisheries, and geography of the Colorado River Basin.

Rivers are the basis of our Colorado livelihoods and are critical to the future of our students and communities. Our natural affinity to water makes rivers and watersheds a useful and familiar context for cross-disciplinary teaching and learning.

Field experiences include: a visit to the Morrow Point and Blue Mesa dams, Roaring Judy Fish Hatchery tour, Gunnison River ecology field day, and a visit to Coldharbour Institute. The second part of the week incorporates participation in the Colorado Water Workshop conference engaging with water resource professionals from across Colorado.

Participants must register for the Colorado Water Workshop to earn 3 ENVS credits. All meals are included beginning Wednesday at noon; 3 credit course fee of $375; additional $40 course fee plus additional fee of $150 (50% discount) for Colorado Water Workshop. Total cost is $565.

For more information or to register visit: http://www.western.edu/gunnison-river-teacher-institute

Colorado School of Mines Teacher Enhancement Program

Do You Know Your 3 R's? Radiation, Radioactivity, and Radon

• Use Geiger counters and cloud chambers to 'see' ionizing radiation in our environment. 
• Explore basic concepts of radioactivity (nuclear emissions, half-life, decay series). 
• Take home the curriculum of 15 activities (plus resources appropriate for Grades 5-12 and beyond) 
• Borrow Teacher Resources kits to use (Geiger counter, cloud chamber, radioactive sources, plus more) 

Course Number: CT-9898-17D
Credit: 1.00 semester credit hours
Location: CSM campus & Denver Federal Center
Date: June 27-29
Time: June 27-28 (8:00am-5:00pm), June 29 (9:00am-12:00pm)

Fees Tuition Fee: $55.00

Check out the class schedule -

Tuesday, June 27th

8:00am Welcome; Introduction of 3R’s/A Brief look at the Curriculum

UNIT 1: WHAT IS RADIATION?

• 8:15am 1-1, Have You Ever Been Exposed to Radiation? 
• 8:30 1-2, Electromagnetic Radiation Spectrum 
• 8:50 1-3, What Are the Sources of Ionizing Radiation? 
• 10:00 A Little History of Ionizing Radiation 
• 10:30 Break 
• 10:45 Info:α, β, & γ 
• 11:00 1-4, I Can See Clearly Now! 
• 11:45 Lunch 
• 12:45pm 1-5, Keep Your Distance! 
• 2:00 1-6, Shields Up! 
• 2:45 Break 

UNIT 2: WHAT IS RADIOACTIVITY?

• 3:00 ‘A is for Atom’ 
• 3:15 2-1, Do You Know Where Your Children Are? 
• 4:15 Follow-up: Decay Series 

Wednesday, June 28th

• 8:00am Decay Series Review 
• 8:15 2-2, Time After Time 
• 8:45 Info: Uranium chemistry 
• 9:00 2-3, Radioactivity in Earth 
• 9:15 2-4, Radioactivity in Water 
• 9:30 2-5, What is Your Personal Ionizing Radiation Dose? 
• 10:00 Follow-up: Units; Safety & Ionizing Radiation (Tom Lehrer, too) 
• 10:30 Break 

UNIT 3: WHAT IS RADON?

• 10:45 3-1, Life Goes On! 
• 11:00 Info: Radon and RDP; Equilibrium and Working Level 
• 11:30 Radon: The Invisible Killer 
• 11:45 Lunch 
• 12:45pm 3-2, Radon in Your Lungs 
• 1:30 Follow-up: Epidemiology 
• 2:00 Hexaflexagons 
• 2:30 Break 
• 2:45 Info: Radon Entry, Watras.... 
• 3:00 3-3, Radon: An “Uninvited” Guest 
• 3:30 Radon: The Invisible Killer 
• 3:45 3-4, Trivia Challenge 
• 4:00 Brainstorming use of curriculum and kits 
• 4:15 Course evaluations, Graduation 

Thursday, June 29th - 9:00am-12:00pm Field Trip - Denver Federal Center Nuclear Reactor

Register early since the class is limited to the first 15 participants. Contact Chris Nichols for course information or questions: cnichols@ecentral.com or 303-674-6477.

Teacher Development Workshop

Interested in learning how to teach creatively about climate change?

CIRES Education Outreach group in collaboration with Inside the Greenhouse and the Colorado Film School, is hosting a 7.5-hour or 15-hour teacher professional development workshop on June 9th at the University of Colorado Boulder. The one-day, 7.5-credit, hands-on workshop will cover how to teach climate science creatively using technology and provide resources for classroom implementation. These strategies link the sciences and the arts through societally important topics, as attendees learn technical skills and topic context. The additional 7.5 credit hours can be earned by producing a short video or other media product about a climate or environmental science topic after the workshop.

This workshop combines tested classroom practices from the NSF-funded Lens on Climate Change project, which has engaged Colorado middle and high school students in climate through filmmaking and the CU Boulder based Inside the Greenhouse course series.

This workshop is intended for middle and high school science, art, and technology teachers. The curricula are aligned to specific Colorado standards in the Life Sciences, Earth Sciences, and Visual Arts. They welcome interested and passionate teachers who want to bridge their expertise with their colleagues’ to create wide-ranging educational experiences.

They are providing many resources that will support implementation in the classroom.

To apply for this workshop, please visit: https://cires.colorado.edu/outreach/LOCC/training

Teacher Professional development credit is coordinated through University of Colorado Boulder’s Science Discovery Program. If you are interested in earning graduate level credit please indicate this on the application form.

Colorado Alliance on Environmental Education

Webinar - Collecting, Analyzing, and Mapping your Citizen Science Data

Wednesday April 26, 3PM - 4PM (Mountain Time)

Joseph Kerski is teaching a webinar THIS WEEK through the Colorado Alliance on Environmental Education on citizen science – specifically, collecting, analyzing, and mapping your citizen science data.

The advent of web mapping and data collection technologies opens up new ways that educators and students can contribute data to the citizen science community. Join Geographer Joseph Kerski as he covers some of the easiest-to-use and most powerful of these methods, including Snap2Map, Story Maps, iNaturalist, and Survey123, which enable field data on invasive plant species, weather, water quality, birds, urban infrastructure conditions, and other data to be displayed and able to be analyzed spatially on interactive, multimedia web maps.

You will be empowered and confident that you can use these tools in an educational environment!

For more information or to register visit: https://www.caee.org/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=244

Contact: 303-273-9527 or Email: info@caee.org

Population Education

Earn professional development hours or university credit with Population Education this July!

Population Education is excited to announce that registration is open for our accelerated Summer 2017 online professional development course for science and social studies educators (grades 6-12). The course has been condensed from eight weeks to four and runs from July 3rd-July 28th, 2017. This fast-paced format results in a heavy work-load, but is perfect for educators who'd like to earn graduate credit or PD hours while school is not in session. Discover student-centered learning strategies that use contemporary issues and real-world data to examine the social and environmental impacts of human population growth. The course is asynchronous, which means students can work at their own leisure and pace. There are online discussion boards, weekly journals, and a final project, all built to provide participants with meaningful feedback and materials to use within their own classrooms.

Participants can choose to earn one credit hour of graduate education credit from UMKC or 45 professional development clock hours (4.5 CEUs) for successfully completing the full four weeks.

The cost is $80.00 to earn 45 professional development clock hours OR $155.00 (for credit) + $80.00 (for professional development clock hours) to earn credit through UMKC.

The first seven students to register for graduate credit with UMKC will receive a 50% discount on their professional development clock hours fee (paying $40 instead of $80).

Class size is capped at 30 participants, so don't wait to sign up. For more information and to register, visit https://courses.populationeducation.org.

Global Exploration for Educators Organization

Travel the world affordably, earn professional development credit, and bring global understanding into your classroom!

Founded in 2007, Global Exploration for Educators Organization (GEEO) is a 501c3 non-profit organization that has sent over 1600 teachers abroad on adventurous travel programs. With GEEO educators can earn professional development credits and optional graduate credit while seeing the world. GEEO's trips are 7 to 21 days in length and are designed and discounted to be interesting and affordable for teachers. In addition to amazing tour leaders, many of the programs are accompanied by university faculty that are experts on the destination. The deposit is $250 for each program and then the final payment is due 60 days before departure.

GEEO also provides teachers educational materials and the structure to help them bring their experiences into the classroom. The trips are open to all nationalities of K-12 and university educators, administrators, retired educators, as well as educators’ guests.

GEEO is offering the following travel programs for 2017: Bali/Lombok, Bangkok to Hanoi, Costa Rica, Eastern Europe, The Galapagos Islands, Greece, Iceland, India/Nepal, Bhutan, Ireland, Armenia/Georgia, Multi-Stan, Morocco, Myanmar (Burma), Peruvian Amazon, Peruvian Andes, Southern Africa, Vietnam/Cambodia, and the Balkans. The registration deadline is June 1st, but space is limited and many programs will be full well before the deadline.

Detailed information about each trip, including itineraries, costs, travel dates, and more can be found at www.geeo.org. GEEO can be reached 7 days a week, toll-free at 1-877-600-0105 between 9AM-9PM EST.