Thank you to our 2024 CoTA STEAM Institute attendees for helping us make this year’s institute a wonderful success!
When: Saturday, March 9 and Saturday, March 16
Time: 9am to 3:30pm
Where: UC San Diego Extended Studies University City Center
For: K through 5th Grade Educators (but all grade level teachers are welcome)
What are our students trying to figure out right now?
For students to succeed in learning across the sciences, they need to actively figure things out for themselves. Students investigate, collect data to analyze and interpret, construct evidence-based explanations, explain their reasoning, and design solutions to problems. This is sense-making in action.Join us as we figure out how hands-on, collaborative, arts integrated practices support student sense-making in the NGSS classroom.
Workshop Descriptions
Phenomenal Concepts – Start the Day with Curiosity and Connection
We will begin each day with mini-activities across multiple artforms that playfully explore curiosity, questions, and conceptual treasures such as cause and effect and patterns. As we move, act, and draw, we can reflect on how these activities support students in looking at the world through curious eyes and connecting concepts across NGSS and all areas of life and learning.
The Dance of Dynamic Models
With Teaching Artist, Amanda Peñaloza-Banks
In NGSS, models are not just about modeling an explanation of a phenomenon but a tool in the quest to make sense of the world, and they evolve as new evidence is found. In this workshop, we will integrate creative movement to physically model a phenomenon based on the initial evidence, and then revise our models based on further investigation and deeper understanding.
Interpreting Data – Scaling Up Graphic Displays to Comprehend the Whole Picture
With Teaching Artist, Leonardo Francisco
Data shows up at every grade level in NGSS, whether that is collecting data, representing it in graphical displays or, most especially, analyzing and interpreting it. In this workshop, we’ll explore playful ways of looking at data, before embarking on some collaborative large-scale visual art graphing with an assortment of visual art materials.
Make your Claim with Theatrical Flair
With Teaching Artist, April Boatman
Some NGSS standards specifically call out for “making a claim”, however claim-evidence-reasoning (CER) has a place in every science unit, to support students in practicing sense-making skills. In this workshop, we’ll integrate theatre to turn CER statements into dramatic and persuasive stories, collaborating in groups to combine our statements with narrative arcs, and translate them into multimedia events.
The Fairytale About the Splendid Solution to the Impossible Problem
With Teaching Artist, Carmela Castrejón
Designing solutions is an essential practice in NGSS and fairytales and stories provide playful, creative ways for younger students to engage. In this workshop, we’ll incorporate the story about three humble goats and the problem of the troll on the bridge and collaboratively design and build prototype solutions out of an assortment of visual art materials.
Throughout these workshops, we will also highlight the importance of storytelling and the collaborative nature of science, and discuss how the arts align with good practices for supporting English Language Development, which is essential for students’ success in NGSS performance tasks.
Download The 2024 CoTA STEAM Institute Flyer
Thank you to our CoTA STEAM Institute Sponsors!
San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture
The Conrad Prebys Foundation
The UC San Diego Department of Education and Community Outreach at the Division of Extended Studies