FAQ
DO YOU HAVE DIFFERENTIATED INSTRUCTION?
Yes we do. Our goal at Green Ninja is to help teachers provide equity and access to every student, and we believe this is best done through a community of learners who are developing and comparing ideas around shared content. Our curriculum is designed so that all students can participate in whole class activities whenever possible. However, in cases where we think the designed materials may not meet the needs of all students, we provide additional teacher guidance and materials to help support all students to meet the grade-level standards. Read more about how we approach differentiated learning https://adoption.greenninja.org/differentiation.
HOW DO YOU SUPPORT ELL STUDENTS?
We have several accommodations to help ELL students. First, each unit and each year is designed around themes and stories that provide students with a context for their learning. This provides a framework for learning that helps all learners, but especially ELL who can benefit from an understanding of the the context of their learning. Further, Green Ninja materials use various visual guides to provide a roadmap of learning in addition to frequent access to videos and presentations, which again are visually oriented. Other research-based strategies to support ELL learners are included in our Access & Equity sections in each unit and throughout various lessons.
IS THIS A ONE-TO-ONE PROGRAM?
No. Teachers have an online portal they use to access all teaching materials including lesson plans, presentations, lab instructions, student reading guides, and worksheets. Students are engaged with hands-on learning outside of a computer, and typically only need computers once per week to access online simulations, to gather data, or to do research. Even so, we also recognize that some teachers prefer a more integrated online learning experience that encourages online collaboration, so all our student facing materials have Google doc version that can be shared via Google classroom.
DO YOU USE THE 5E MODEL?
Yes we do. Although we don’t explicitly call out each of the 5Es within the lesson plans, we used this model in our curriculum development process. We also created our own lesson progression level that is derived from the 5E model, and that identifies each lesson based on the following.
“Introductory” lessons help engage students by stimulating interest and generating motivation.
“Developmental” lessons helps students explore key concepts, explain observations/findings and extend their learning to new situations.
“Assessment” lessons help evaluate student understanding and provide evidence of accomplishments.
The progression level of each lesson is provided in the lesson tab, or within each lesson in the standard section.
WHERE DOES THE NAME ‘GREEN NINJA’ COME FROM?
In 2010, academics at San Jose State University (SJSU) created an environmental superhero (Green Ninja) to encourage youth to create a cleaner and healthier planet. As Green Ninja films became popular with students and teachers, accompanying academic research identified learning pathways that resulted in improvements in student engagement and student achievement. In 2014, the SJSU team decided to combine their research outcomes with the quirky Green Ninja stories to create their own NGSS curriculum.
Note: Although traditionally ‘ninja’ referred to a Japanese warrior or agent, today the term commonly refers to someone who excels at a particular skill or activity. For example: ‘Ask Maria for help; she’s a computer ninja.’ Hence, a ‘Green Ninja’ is someone who excels at the knowledge and action that are going to make our planet cleaner and healthier, for everyone.
DO YOU HAVE MATERIALS IN OTHER LANGUAGES?
Yep! We offer all student-facing files and all vocabulary in Spanish. The teacher can easily switch between English and Spanish through the teacher portal.
DO YOU HAVE KITS?
Yes we do. Since our curriculum focuses on hands-on learning, each unit requires materials for demonstrations, experiments, and design challenges. Although we try to use easy-to-access materials whenever possible, we also know that teachers are busy and don’t want to spend their weekends collecting materials at local hardware, craft, and office supply stores. Thus, Green Ninja also provides materials kits so that teachers can focus solely on instruction and student learning. For teachers who want to collect the suggested materials independently, we provide lists of materials and tips on where to obtain harder-to-find items.
HOW DO YOU SUPPORT PARENTS?
We know that parents value their child’s learning, and we offer a number of methods to help parents be supportive. First, we provide a letter that teachers can send to parents to share how an NGSS classroom may be different from a more traditional classroom and how they can help with new ways of learning. For parents who want to keep up with student learning, the student workbooks contain all the activities and reading for each chapter. This helps parents reinforce student learning when needed.
DO YOU HAVE PRINTED MATERIALS?
Of course. We have a printed Teacher’s Companion for every unit of instruction to support teacher prep and instruction. We have Student Workbooks that include all the student-facing materials including the chapter readings and questions. Furthermore, teachers can print out any student materials or teachers materials using the online teacher portal.
DO YOU SATISFY THE WILLIAMS ACT?
Absolutely. According to the Williams Act, students need to have access to adequate instructional materials both at school and at home. Our printed student workbooks provide students with standards-based content for the entire year including reading and vocabulary for each chapter. Determining how the Williams Act is satisfied for any curricular materials is typically determined by the school district and school board. A good review of this subject is provided by CSTA here.
HOW DO YOU ACCOMMODATE STUDENTS WHO NEED TO MISS CLASS?
Here are three ways. 1) Teachers can provide students with PDFs of any of the lessons that they will miss. 2) Students can follow along with the science content covered via the reading from the student workbook and any activities that can be done on their own. 3) Students can access the Remote Learning program when they are away for an extended period of time to complete work asynchronously. Although the remote learning program was designed during the Pandemic for asynchronous learning, the core content is aligned with the classroom learning program.
THE INTERNET AT MY SCHOOL IS SPOTTY. WHAT HAPPENS THEN?
Teachers have access to or can create PDFs of all the lessons, files, and presentations. Access to videos and simulations may be more challenging, but we can work with districts to provide downloadable copies if requested. Should reliable internet access be a regular issue, then teachers may also find it helpful to download the materials or print them ahead of class. As noted above, students only need access to computers and the internet about once a week to complete classroom activities.
YOU SEEM TO USE OUTSIDE RESOURCES IN YOUR PROGRAM. WHAT HAPPENS IF THESE LINKS ARE UNREACHABLE OR CHANGE?
We’ve designed our program with various opportunities for students to gather real-time data and conduct online research using websites like the EPA and NASA. These experiences mimic what scientists do in the workplace and provide students with professional skills and practice. However, we also recognize that outside websites change or go down on occasion, and our job is to make sure every link works and points to the right place. If you find a link that isn’t working or doesn’t have the intended content, click on the small icon next to the link to report the broken link to our team. We’ll get on it right away and fix the problem!
ARE YOUR ASSESSMENTS EDITABLE?
Yes. All the files provided in the teacher portal, including presentations, worksheets and assessments can be edited via google docs/slides. This way teachers can update any files including assessments to best meet their own teaching styles and the needs of their students.
IS YOUR PROGRAM COMPATIBLE WITH GOOGLE CLASSROOM?
Yes. All the files provided in the teacher portal have a Google Classroom link so that teachers can add that file to any of their Google classrooms. Further because we provide Google docs versions of all our files, teachers can also edit any file and then add that file to their Google classroom.
YOU HAVE oVER 180 DAYS OF INSTRUCTION FOR EACH GRADE, BUT I DON’T HAVE THAT MANY DAYS TO TEACH.
State departments of education often require a particular number of days of instruction (e.g., California requires 180) for each grade level. We know that in reality, teachers may not have all those days available so here are some suggestions for how to approach this.
Choose a more limited set of units to cover, and then give your students the time needed to be successful. Inquiry-based education takes time, and giving students the time to fail and then figure things out is not only a valuable learning experience, but also a helpful approach to prepare students for state-wide assessments.
Look through a unit to see if there are chapters that you can skip. Each chapter focuses on a particular science topic and it’s often possible to remove one or two chapters in a unit while still preserving the integrity of the unit.