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A teacher circulates through a full elementary classroom as students work at their desks.

Science Learning, Designed with You

The UC San Diego Science Project, hosted by UC San Diego CREATE, partners with schools, districts, and county offices to strengthen science teaching and learning. We co-design professional learning with your teachers and leaders, connect classrooms to UC San Diego and Scripps Oceanography researchers, and build your internal capacity so the work lasts.

Tell Us Your Needs (2 to 3 min) Schedule a Meeting

Who We Serve

Schools, districts, and county offices

Formats

Instructional coaching, teaching studios, lesson study, and workshops to multi-year partnerships

Aligned To

NGSS and California frameworks

OUR APPROACH

Every Partnership Starts by Listening

We begin with your goals, your data, and your priorities, then design the work alongside your teachers and leaders. Professional learning happens in classrooms with students, and it builds toward your own capacity to lead it.

Step 1: Listen

A needs assessment conversation grounded in your site or district context.

Step 2: Co-Design

We plan the work with you and your teacher leaders.

Step 3: Implement

Professional learning embedded in classrooms, curriculum, and practice.

Step 4: Build Capacity

Your facilitators and teacher leaders learn to sustain and grow the work.

TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE

Our Services

A teacher leads a lesson at the front of a classroom while students and visiting teachers watch from their desks.

Lesson Study and Teaching Studios

Teachers learn new instructional practices together in real classrooms through collaborative cycles of planning, teaching, observing, and debriefing. Teams study how students respond to instruction and refine their teaching together.

See it in action:

Elementary students gather around a tray of soil and plants under a lamp, recording observations in their notebooks.

Elementary Science Champions

Comprehensive support for elementary science. Teachers gain access to curriculum resources and experience instructional practices from their adopted curriculum to support their diverse learners.

See it in action:

Three smiling teachers at the Climate Champions Design Summit hold up micro:bit sensors and a laptop showing the temperature data they collected.

Climate and Environmental Education

Professional learning that connects your teachers directly with Scripps Oceanography scientists and local climate phenomena, using the Understanding Global Change framework.

See it in action:

Students work on laptops while a lesson is projected at the front of a bright elementary classroom.

Curriculum Implementation and Customization

Support for adopting, implementing, and adapting science instructional materials, including OpenSciEd and Amplify Science. We help teachers integrate local phenomena and new practices so your curriculum fits your students and community.

See it in action:

Elementary students stand at the front of the class presenting a hand-drawn model to their classmates.

Student-Centered Assessment and Performance Tasks

Developing and using three-dimensional performance tasks that treat assessment as learning, designed to be accessible for multilingual learners and students with special needs, alongside more equitable grading practices.

See it in action:

Three students smile as they look at a sound wave displayed on a laptop screen.

STEM and Arts Integration

Transdisciplinary pathways into science: the NSF-funded Science of Sound and Music, computer science integration with micro:bit sensors and data practices, and engineering design challenges developed with UC San Diego's Jacobs School of Engineering.

See it in action:

Two students work side by side on Chromebooks, viewing a data visualization.

AI and Science Media Literacy

Professional learning that builds teachers' understanding of how to help students develop critical literacy with claims from social media and generative artificial intelligence tools.

See it in action:

Students collaborate at shared tables with laptops and printed worksheets.

Supporting Multilingual Learners in Science

Language and literacy practices woven through all of our work, designed for the students of our region. Instruction built on phenomena, modeling, and student sense-making creates authentic contexts for language development.

See it in action:

Teachers gather around a laptop showing a sound spectrogram during a professional learning workshop.

Teacher Leadership and Facilitator Development

We build your internal capacity. Facilitator training, instructional coach development, and teacher leadership pathways ensure the work continues and grows after our partnership, led by your own people.

See it in action:

A student stands beside a colorful poster about cooling her schoolyard, displayed on a chain-link fence.

Grant-Funded Opportunity: Climate Champions

Bring Climate Champions to your own school district. Learn to use units such as Cooler Communities, developed with Scripps Oceanography scientists and San Diego teacher leaders.

Explore Climate Champions

Start the Conversation

Tell us about your site or district's needs in 2 to 3 minutes, and we'll follow up with tailored options and free resources. Prefer to talk it through? Schedule directly with Alec Barron, Ed.D., Director of the UC San Diego Science Project.

Take the Needs Assessment Survey Schedule a Meeting

Or email us anytime: sdsp@ucsd.edu