What to Expect

We strive to make these workshops an immersive, interactive experience. This means you will be doing much more than simply sitting and listening.

Synchronous Sessions

For all of the synchronous sessions you will be encouraged to participate via the chat feature. Each talk will have discussion time at the end of it and you can ask questions with the chat feature or over the phone. So come with your questions! Synchronous sessions will be recorded so you can catch up on missed sessions.

Sychronous sessions will use the Elluminate software for screen sharing and a conference call telephone line for the audio. By far the best way to do the audio for the workshop is to use a phone that accepts a headset and to have a headset with a mute button. This will allow you to mute yourself during presentations. It is also really convenient to have your hands free during the sessions so you can type. Please do not use a speakerphone or a cell phone. These will introduce noise into the conference call. So if you can, secure a headset that you can use for the workshop. Read more about the technical aspects of the online workshop.

Discussion Threads

Every day will have a discussion thread for relevant topics. These are a great way to keep the conversations going between sessions. We'd like everyone to read and post in these discussions each day of the workshop.

Working Group Projects

There will be a writing project during the workshop. It is these projects that make this a workshop rather than a conference. We feel that it's essential that everyone take part in the learning process by jumping in with hands-on projects. Plus, you will meet new people and you will come away with materials that you can use directly in your own classrooms.During the break from May 13-15, workshop participants will form small working groups of 2-3 people. Each group will select one of the climate literacy concepts that apply to teaching about interactions between components of the climate system. Groups will work together to do one of the following:

• Browse the CLEAN collection of educational materials and select a suite of materials that can be used to teach one of the climate literacy concepts. Create a web page that contains the steps needed to teach the principle, describes how each step links together, provides needed materials to segue between the various components, and describes an assessment method that can be used to determine if students have met the goals of the activity. See an example from the 2011 workshop.
  
• OR, author an idea for how to teach this concept and create a web page containing a description of the idea. See examples from the 2011 workshop.

This work will take place from Friday evening through Tuesday morning, and we'll have each group do a show-and-tell of your page on Tuesday May 15. Then we'll spend the rest of the day on Tuesday reviewing each others' pages and giving feedback to strengthen the work. This process is fun because you get to see what other groups have come up with and you get helpful feedback on your own work.

You'll have most of Wednesday to make finishing touches on your pages. Ultimately the pages will me made live on the CLEAN site.