By Brian MacNevin
NWESD Regional Science Coordinator

Do you want to know more about OpenSciEd and how it can make a big difference in your elementary classroom?

Regional Science Coordinators Jeff Ryan and Luke Matlack will join me for a 1.5-hour, free awareness session designed to introduce you to the vision, structure, and key features of the OpenSciEd Elementary instructional materials!

We will offer awareness sessions three times: April 15, May 7 and June 2. Space in some sessions is already filling up, so register soon!

Clock hours in STEM or Equity are available to those who attend.

Sessions are ideal for educators, instructional coaches and school leaders across the state who want to strengthen the science learning at their elementary schools. No prior experience with OpenSciEd is required.

Participants will leave with a clearer understanding of what OpenSciEd looks like in practice and next steps for exploring or implementing the materials in their setting.

A third-grade teacher who was involved in the field testing of the elementary OpenSciEd project said their school is now teaching science in their district, instead of embedding it in ELA curriculum.

“Now students are engaging in experiments and interpreting data in multiple ways!” they wrote during the field test.

What is OpenSciEd?

OpenSciEd is a nonprofit organization that creates engaging, freely available, high-quality instructional materials endemic to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The OpenSciEd development team included experts in the field of science education (many were authors for the NRC Framework and the NGSS), well-known curriculum developers and publishers for science (including BSCS and Carolina), and higher education experts (from such places as The Dana Center, Northwestern University, The Boston College, and The University of Colorado Boulder). Washington State teachers and students participated in a multi-state coalition to field test and revise the materials based on student experiences and learning.

I was fortunate to be involved first as a part of the early design specifications writing team, and then later as a field test facilitator for the middle school (seventh grade) instructional materials, in which I trained Washington’s seventh grade field test teachers on how to use the materials with their students. Within NWESD’s region, I recruited and supported teachers participating as field test teachers for the middle, high school, and elementary school field tests. And I have helped many districts dip their toes into OpenSciEd. Through the state’s ClimeTime initiative, we procured many sets of instructional materials at the Science Materials Center, which are available for any district to check out for a mere $185.00.

The elementary program just finished final edits and revisions this year and is now fully available. Altogether, OpenSciEd now represents a complete K-11 science curriculum explicitly based on the NGSS and designed to develop students’ content knowledge and their capabilities as scientists and engineers over time.

“From community agreements, to scientist circles, to classroom discussions taking a central role in our learning, OpenSciEd has taught me equitable ways to put learning into the hands of my students. They are the drivers and they love it! These practices have become a part of our learning together in all content areas,” one third-grade teacher wrote while field testing the elementary OpenSciEd materials.

Why OpenSciEd?

My favorite thing about OpenSciEd is that it adopts a storyline approach to instructional design. Students engage in trying to make sense of a phenomenon based on their own backgrounds and background knowledge, and then they employ the full suite of Science and Engineering Practices to make sense of phenomena or to design solutions to real-world problems. From the ground up, OpenSciEd is built on supporting equitable access to science ideas and equitable participation in the sense-making process. Students placed at the center of navigating what needs to happen next and discerning how what they did helps them explain the central phenomenon or solve the central problem in the unit. To quote Brian Reiser from Northwestern University, “the units are coherent from the student’s point of view.”

How to register:

All sessions are via Zoom and there are three to choose from!

  • Wed., April 15, 2026; 4:00 – 5:30 p.m. [pdEnroller]
  • Thu., May 7, 2026; 4:00 – 5:30 p.m. [pdEnroller]
  • Tue., June 2, 2026; 4:00 – 5:30 p.m. [pdEroller]

More Learning

  • These materials are open educational resources, so they are free for teachers to access and to use! Bear in mind, they are free like a puppy may be offered “for free”. OpenSciEd is a complete and full curriculum with in-depth support for teachers and lots of pieces to it. Teachers and students will experience the greatest success with these materials when accompanied by high quality professional learning and when physical materials are provided.
  • I can support introductory OpenSciEd professional learning at all levels K-HS. And NWESD’s Science Materials Center also has all 6-11 units and most K-5 units available for check out.
  • On-demand (web-based) support for teachers includes unit webinars to help demonstrate the storyline approach for each and every unit and OpenSciEd is developing lesson-by-lesson videos for preparing individual lessons within units for instruction.

Questions?

General OpenSciEd questions can be directed to me, Brian MacNevin, at bmacnevin@nwesd.org.

For questions about the content of the class, questions can also go to Jeff Ryan (jryan@oesd114.org) or Luke Matlack (luke.matlack@esd105.org). For questions about registration, email Heather Archut (harchut@oesd114.org).