Seeds to Solutions lesson plans use the Storyline Instructional Model, giving students more agency and empowerment in their learning. Instead of simply following instructions from textbooks or teachers, students engage in sense-making as they work together to explore questions and understand real-world phenomena. This sparks students’ curiosity and teaches them how to think, not what to think.
- Each unit begins with an Anchor Lesson that sets the stage for inquiry-based Investigative Lessons.
- The anchor and the investigations inform Consensus Model Building, where students develop an explanation or storyline for the environmental phenomenon.
- The unit ends with a Culminating Engagement where students get to design and participate in solutions to the environmental challenge they’ve investigated.
- This model is a modified version of the BSCS Anchored Inquiry Learning Model.
Design Principles for Seeds to Solutions Units
- An inquiry-based approach where students (and teachers) are provided opportunities to make observations and ask questions that lead to deeper understanding and action.
- An integration of the core content and skills outlined in the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), California’s Environmental Principles and Concepts (EP&Cs), and other relevant standards and frameworks.
- The use of equity-focused frameworks such as, but not limited to, Culturally Relevant and Responsive Pedagogy, Universal Design for Learning, Indigenous Ways of Knowing, and honoring the knowledge and experiences students already possess.
- An interdisciplinary approach where themes, concepts, skills, and content knowledge across multiple disciplines are required to meet the project’s challenges and provide students with authentic approaches to problem-solving in the 21st century.
- A data literacy approach where teachers and students identify potential local issues and look for patterns in local data sets, and develop and use models and other explanations that illuminate these issues.
- A focus on helping students acquire and develop the skills of data science, analysis, and interpretation; expression, including writing, presentations, and multimedia; inquiry; and civic engagement.
- An explicit focus on how environmental issues disproportionately benefit or harm some populations more than others and create injustices that ultimately impact everyone.