The Center for Inquiry Science offers a comprehensive set of serves to Puget Sound region schools and districts, and often by request, to those across Washington state. These services include:

• Consulting
• Professional Development
• Leadership Training

Consultation

The Center for Inquiry Science (CIS) consults with districts to develop strategic plans related to district-wide science education reform. Once districts have developed a strategic plan, CIS can assist districts in implementing their plans. Current consulting projects include curriculum adoption, K–10 vertical course alignment, end of course assessment, and ongoing implementation coaching.

Professional Development

The Center for Inquiry Science (CIS) collaborates with community partners to develop and offer a range of professional development opportunities for science educators. CIS staff can work with districts or schools to develop Customized Professional Development Packages, and individual teachers can participate in Open Enrollment Professional Development Offerings. The types of professional development offerings provided by CIS are described below – to learn more about these offerings, please visit the Course Catalog.

Initial Use Workshops:: basic, introductory training to enchance teachers´ ability to effectively teach instructional materials adopted by their school districts (by vendors including STC, FOSS, Insights, SEPUP, It´s About Time, BSCS and others)

Science Content Workshops: professional development designed to deepen teachers´ understanding of science concepts as related directly to the core curriculum instructional materials

Special Topic Workshops: professional development designed to deepen teachers´ repertoire of strategies and abilities for teaching adopted instructional materials – workshop offerings may include notebook strategies, introduction to the inquiry continuum, and workshop provider training.

Recently the Center for Inquiry Science formalized efforts to train regional teacher leaders towards becoming professional providers. Alumni of this program entitled the Science Educators´ Network for Professional Growth assist in coordinating regional professional development. To learn more about the Science Educators´ Network, please see Featured Projects.