Please contact SASP Director, Chris Griesemer (cdgriesemer@ucdavis.edu) for more information about any of the following programming. Most of our prior offerings can be tailored to your school or district needs in terms of content and scope. We regularly work with districts to design programming to meet immediate teacher needs.

CAST Academy

A 4-part learning series to develop understanding of the California Science Test (CAST) and support shifts in science instruction.

(Offered Winter 2026 in Partnership with the Yolo County Office of Education.)

• Deepen understanding of how the CAST assessment is designed;
• Explore tools, resources, and sample assessment structures to support student success on the CAST;
• Access performance task bank resources to support instruction.

Re-grounding Our NGSS Instruction: Students Engaged in Practices

• Experience the beginning of a NGSS-aligned learning sequence to recognize high-impact instructional practices and the required shifts in instruction;
• Understand the core focus on students engaging in the science and engineering practices and developing critical reasoning skills;
• Understand and leverage similarities between NGSS and Common Core standards for impactful literacy development;
• Discuss key features of NGSS learning and use tools to evaluate your current instructional materials;
• Collaborate to use resources to augment your instructional materials and support implementation of your adopted curriculum.

Promoting Student Science Talk in the Classroom

• Learn strategies and tools to produce more purposeful science talk in your classroom;
• Recognize the kind of classroom conversations that support students’ science learning;
• Plan to use classroom talk strategies across the arc of a learning sequence.

Disciplinary Literacy for NGSS Instruction

• Using the research-based SASP Science Literacy Framework, learn how to engage students in reading, writing, and dialogue in the science classroom in a way that is called for by the Common Core State Standards Literacy in Science.
• These literacy strategies and routines serve as important tools to help students engage with the fundamental ideas of science.
• Related workshop, “Making Time for Science through Literacy”, an elementary workshop exploring bridges between NGSS-aligned curricula and ELA/ELD.

Data Literacy: Bringing Science and Math Together

• Explore how to create data literate, computationally skilled students, and how centering data launches both standards-aligned science and math instruction. Full day or two half days.
• This program can be provided in collaboration with the UC Davis Math Project with an exploration alignment between science and the new math framework.

Science Content Workshops

• Through connections with science faculty and instructors at Sacramento State, UC Davis, community colleges, and an extensive network of teacher leaders, refresh and dig deeper into selected science content at the adult level;
• Develop understanding to appropriately align content to NGSS grade bands and  incorporate effective pedagogical techniques.

Administrators supporting NGSS instruction

• 4-part series for supporting school and district administrators in their role of instructional leader
• Understand the key features of NGSS instruction and their congruence with other academic standards and district initiatives (including attention to SEL and UDL);
• Discuss pathway to develop and sustain educators capacity for NGSS instruction and assessment
• Can be connected to other initiatives, including exploration of CTE (job opportunities in STEM and environmental science in your area)

Elementary Specific Workshops

• Elementary Introduction to NGSS*: an introduction to your standards, the instructional shifts in NGSS (4-part series) *SASP has already supported Winters and Woodland teachers through this series.
• Making Time for Science: an exploration of how to connect to ELA/ELD and how engaging science benefits outcomes and scores across subjects.
• Reengaging Play in Science: an exploration of on-campus outdoor education, science standards, and environmental literacy. Can be combined with math support (UC Davis Math Project) with a focus on physical science standards.
• Supporting Elementary Science Instruction Through Physical Science: a cross-grade series highlighting the vertical progression of physical science models, and area teachers often struggle to engage. Helps kids to perform on the 5th grade CAST.

For more information about any of the programs listed above, contact SASP Director, Chris Griesemer, (cdgriesemer@ucdavis.edu).