Customized Science Support for Schools and Districts

Our team can customize a professional learning sequence based on the goals of your school or district, and are available during the academic year from September through April, pending our team's capacity.

We can provide virtual workshops and coaching, or host teachers in our world-class museum and outside in Golden Gate Park. We may also be able to travel to your Bay Area location.

We are open to partnerships that include, virtually or in-person:

• Delivering PD experiences that range from 1.5 hours to multi-day sessions
• Building the capacity of teacher leaders within and across school sites
• Coaching teachers one-on-one in the classroom
• Coaching groups of teachers at school sites
• Facilitating planning days for groups of teachers

Below are our existing offerings for virtual and in-person science support, but if you don't see what you're looking for, please contact us and we may be able to customize something just for you!

All of our virtual workshops are highly interactive and engage participants in small-group discussion and individual exploration. Educators participate in activities as learners, and reflect with colleagues about how to apply ideas to their own teaching. We can welcome up to 95 participants per session, and our workshops range from 1.5-hour single sessions to a 9-hour learning experience over three days. Our growing list of virtual learning opportunities includes:

• Better Than a Webinar: How to Facilitate Interactive Online PD
• Digging into Data
• Engaging Learner's with the Academy's Online Resources
• Engineering: Beyond Building Bridges
• Inquiry Anywhere
• Let's Go Outside!
• Low Floor, High Ceiling: Making Science Tasks More Spacious
• Talk, Write, Draw: Tools for Meaning Making in Science
• The ABCs of Hands-on, Minds-on Learning
• ... We also offer virtual coaching for small groups of teachers

We can deliver one-day sessions or multi-day series focused on any of the following themes:

• NGSS: Introductory & Intermediate Workshops
• Making the Most of Science Notebooks
• Levels of Inquiry/Student Investigations
• Hands On, Minds On: Activity Before Content
• Exploring Phenomena: Using Science to Figure Things Out
• Science Discourse for the NGSS classroom
• Mindset Matters: Learning and the Brain
• Taking Your Teaching Outside:
  • Let's Go Outside! (PreK-3+)
  • Thriving California (grades 4-8)
• ...and more!

We may have access to funds that can offset the cost of custom PD for California-based schools, districts, and organizations. You can let us know via our contact form if that’s something you’re interested in!

Previous partnerships with schools, districts, universities, and county offices have ranged in cost from approximately $1K (e.g. delivering a 1.5-hour conference-style session) to $70K (e.g. year-long, multi-modal support for an entire district around implementing new NGSS-aligned curriculum). 

The cost of the Academy's custom PD depends on the length of the partnership, scope of work, and how much customization is requested or required.

The Academy's Teacher Professional Development team looks forward to learning more about your context and needs in order to craft meaningful science support to fit your goals and budget.