Designing for justice means centering inquiry on phenomena that cross the artificial boundary between human and natural systems. The result is instruction that not only teaches students to understand the natural world, but broadens their perspectives on how humans fit into natural systems, what constitutes science, and what they can accomplish using science. In high school, some of the design problems that students are noticing in the world may feel overwhelming, but breaking them down using the ideas and practices of science can help students find hope and resilience. For example in OpenSciEd HS, students ask: Where should we focus efforts on treatment and prevention of cancer? What can we do to make driving safer for everyone? How can we slow the flow of energy on Earth to protect vulnerable communities? To answer these, students must use science ideas and practices to understand/think creatively about design problems that emerge from complex systems at the nature-human divide.

TAKEAWAYS:
NGSS-designed instruction that is oriented toward justice can not only teach students to understand the natural world, but broadens their perspectives on how humans fit into natural systems, what constitutes science, and what they can accomplish using science.

SPEAKERS:
Zoe Buck Bracey (Senior Science Educator and Director of Design for Justice: Colorado Springs, CO), Samantha Pinter (Norwalk Public Schools: Norwalk, CT), Jamie Noll (BSCS Science Learning: Colorado Springs, CO)

It is a challenge to help students not only figure out science ideas, but how to work together and support each other. This panel of classroom teachers will explore how co-constructed community agreements, returned to throughout the year, can help students participate in a scientific community.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will understand how community agreements are used in OpenSciEd and other high school classrooms to support collective and equitable sensemaking.

SPEAKERS:
Rachel Patton (Denver Public Schools), Joe Kremer (Denver Public Schools: No City, No State), Samantha Pinter (Norwalk Public Schools: Norwalk, CT)

Reconsider how complex mathematical thinking should be employed to support all students in science. An open-source high school curriculum is used to illustrate how specific elements of SEP 4 and 5 are leveraged in the service of figuring out explanations of phenomena and designing solutions.

TAKEAWAYS:
Leveraging data analysis and mathematical thinking in context to explain phenomena and design solutions, rather than front-loading skills, helps students engage with these practices as sensemaking tools, deepening student understanding of the science and fluency in employing math in novel ways.

SPEAKERS:
Jamie Noll (BSCS Science Learning: Colorado Springs, CO), Nicole Vick (Northwestern University), Jim Ryan (OpenSciEd: New York, NY), Michael Novak (Northwestern University: Evanston, IL)

Examine how climate understandings are developed over the three courses in the OpenSciEd high school program. Discussions will revolve around incorporation of Earth and space science throughout the program and look closely at human impacts on various scales of Earth systems.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will see how climate understandings are built coherently across the OpenSciEd high school program while addressing social justice and equity. Various disciplinary lenses are leveraged across courses to explore how humans influence and are influenced by climate.

SPEAKERS:
Kate Henson (University of Colorado Boulder: Boulder, CO), Nicole Vick (Northwestern University)

Experience how HS OpenSciEd bio, chem, and physics support students in developing engineering practices and ideas in the context of complex problems. Examples from units investigating the Texas power outages, polar ice melt, and wildlife populations in Serengeti National Park will be highlighted.

TAKEAWAYS:
Teachers will experience the different scaffolds and instructional supports for engineering thinking included in the HS OpenSciEd materials. Participants will see how they could use similar supports and materials in their own contexts and learn how high school OpenSciEd units will extend this work.

SPEAKERS:
Dan Voss (Northwestern University: Evanston, IL), Kate Henson (University of Colorado Boulder: Boulder, CO)

Experience phenomenon based, stoylined curriculum in high school biology! Use an agent based model, in the form of a table top game, to generate evidence to answer questions about predator prey interactions.

TAKEAWAYS:
Learn how to use a computational model to generate evidence to answer questions about about predator prey interactions.

SPEAKERS:
Kate Henson (University of Colorado Boulder: Boulder, CO)