K-12 Education

The WWEST Educator team supports and enhances teacher professional growth, comfort, and confidence, in developing curriculum linked STEM lessons and assessments, to increase student curiosity, interest and excitement. WWEST supports K-12 school teachers, students, and families through:

• Personalized professional growth
• Afterschool programs
• Science Fair program development
• Parent Advisory Council partnerships
• UBCO STEM tours and workshops
• Unique in-person curriculum support
• Collaborative development and delivery of a series of research informed, curriculum-linked, hands-on learning activities

“I cannot sing the praises of WWEST enough. They have inspired my class to think like scientists— being critical thinkers, being curious, asking good questions and figuring out steps to find the answer.” – WWEST STEM Curriculum Support Program Teacher Participant

WWEST STEM CURRICULUM SUPPORT PROGRAM

The WWEST team loves collaborating with K-12 educators and communities to bring STEM into BC, Yukon, and Northwest Territories classrooms, across all subject areas! Our goal is to walk alongside educators to support, encourage, role model and co-design STEM learning activities and assessments, based on the needs of YOUR students and school community. With gratitude to our partners, sponsors, and many school or Parent Advisory Council teams, this program is offered at no-cost to you as an educator. (Funding resources provided by PAC, will support the schools to which they are attached).

Please note that due to high demand of program requests, and limited budget and staff availability, we are unable to guarantee programming to all that apply.  Accepted applications will be contacted directly by the WWEST Educator Team.

Details/How to Apply

Throughtout the year, we connect with schools and communities across BC, the Yukon, and NWT, however, applications for each upcoming school year open on June 1, and close on September 5.  This is a short application window, as our capacity for the year fills very quickly.

If your application is selected, together we will build a series of BC Curriculum connected, hands-on-learning, STEM-based activities to spark interest and curiosity in STEM!  The STEM activities are chosen by teachers from our field tested lesson bank.  We will also work with teachers to develop activities connected to a particular learning outcome, if time and resources are available to do so.

We provide the supplies, in-person faciliation of the lessons and activities, and continue to support educators through various means after our visits are completed.  Examples of support include: on-going conversation, professional growth workshops, assessment strategies, or continued sharing of lessons.

Okanagan Based Schools (Approximately 1 hour driving distance from UBCO)

Within the local boundaries of the Okanagan, WWEST facilitates a series of four visits (once a week for four weeks) to selected classrooms that have submitted an application, prior to the Fall deadline. As an alternative, we also offer the opportunity for educators to bring their classes to campus, to experience STEM learning through participating in WWEST activities, complimented by interaction with undergraduate, graduate, faculty or staff, based on interest in a particular field of study or research. *Should groups choose to come to campus, transportation and meals are the responsibility of individual educators to arrange and/or fund.

Beyond the Okanagan (BC/Yukon/NWT)

When travelling beyond the Okanagan region, we do our best to complete visits within the same week, at each school we have the budget to travel to.  If selected for a travel program, we work with individual school teams to develop an appropriate schedule.