ORANGE COUNTY COHORT

ESCAPE | Orange County Cohort

Seven Orange County California School Districts participated in the traditional in-person version of the ESCAPE Program. The professional development provided to teachers through the ESCAPE program was multifaceted. It started with week-long Summer Institutes in Earth Science (2014), Life Science (2015), and Physical Sciences (2016). The teachers then implemented the innovative arts and science lessons in their classrooms to help students better develop the academic language needed to understand scientific concepts and support the research through pre- and post-testing and reflection. Segerstrom Center for the Arts provided teaching artists who came to the classroom to assist teachers with the visual and performing arts components. Orange County Department of Education planned and hosted follow-up professional development. All activities were videotaped and processed by the ESCAPE media team in order to develop online courses for teachers to learn how to teacher Earth, Life, and Physical Sciences through the Arts.

Earth Science Summer Institute

The 2014 Escape Summer Institute took place from August 11th-15th. Five full days of activities included teacher assessments, lesson plan implementation, research planning, keynote speakers on science and arts topics, performances, hands-on arts and science activities, breakout groups, and tours of science labs.

The first two days of the Summer Institute took place at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts where participants enjoyed access to world-class performing arts facilities and experienced:

  • speakers presenting on literacy, academic vocabulary and the Common Core, and vocabulary building strategies for English language learners
  • science educators leading teachers through Earth Science lessons
  • artists planning and demonstrating visual and performing arts lessons
  • hands-on scientific experiments.

The Orange County Department of Education hosted the next two days where scientist speakers shared information about climate change and black holes, the new NGSS standards were discussed, visual and performing arts movement training took place, and a hands-on activity building a support tower.

The last day of the Summer Institute took place at the University of California, Irvine with a keynote speaker who talked about the drought, visual arts activities, scientific experiments, science lab tours, and teacher interviews.

Workshops

The follow-up professional development that occurred during the academic year provided teachers with opportunities to:

  • work with the Segerstrom Center for the Arts teaching artists on visual and performing arts activities,
  • extend knowledge of teaching academic content and literacy to English language learners,
  • examine the arts and science standards in more depth,
  • learn about curriculum connections, and
  • participate in the research.
Lesson Plans

Lesson plans being used in the ESCAPE project are developed through a working partnership between the Orange County Department of Education (OCDE) and the Segerstrom Center for the Arts (SCFTA) and are written to align with the future of science education, the Next Generation Science Standards. Content for the different styles of lessons written is identical in NGSS standards addressed, science misconceptions targeted, and academic vocabulary emphasized.

The difference between the lesson plans lies in the particular teaching strategies used in the lesson plans. The Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) lesson plans developed by OCDE invoke inquiry-based methods of instruction, while the STEAM lesson plans developed by SCFTA have an added “A,” or Arts, component. The Arts components of the STEAM lesson plans include both visual arts and dance arts and are based on California Department of Education Visual and Performing Arts (VAPA) standards.

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