Teachers
WCS Education offers teacher professional development workshops focused on sharing best practices in science education and connecting teachers with innovative ways to bring conservation stories into the classroom. Teacher surveys administered on an ongoing basis since 2017 provide insight into program impacts and highlight opportunities for forging deeper connections with our school community.
Each year, hundreds of teachers participate in our teacher workshops, accruing tens of thousands of contact hours. Nearly all teachers work at New York City public schools and collectively reach an estimated 60,000 schoolchildren from PreK through 12th grade.
Workshops are highly rated, with 90% of teachers rating the programs as superior or excellent. Almost all noted that they learned about new ideas or activities – including WCS-created resources and field trips for students – that they planned to integrate in their curricula.
Complementing the evaluation of teacher workshops, we track use of several teacher resources that we offer for free on our website. WCS Presents Field Sight, our curricula focused on WCS field researchers and conservation work, drew in over 2,600 users last year and prompted hundreds of downloads.
We also conduct research on the impact of zoo and aquarium-based professional development on teachers’ skills and attitudes toward science. Here are a few examples of our work.
