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826, KQED, and teachers

On Saturday, March 2, 826 Valencia hosted our first workshop in conjunction with KQED, all for teachers! The workshop was part of a series that the San Francisco Unified School District coordinates through their SLANT initiative (SLANT stands for Science, Literacy, and Arts iNtegration in the Twenty-first century). By partnering with arts and science organizations in San Francisco, SLANT gives teachers in the district opportunities outside of the classroom to create and practice new ways of integrating science and arts curriculum, building on research on the similar cognitive processes for the two disciplines.

Eight teachers, with backgrounds ranging from first grade to high school biology, signed up for the Saturday morning workshop in 826 Valencia’s writing lab. The goal for the day was to create audio podcasts about a personal connection to a scientific principal.

KQED kicked things off by guiding teachers through an activity around sound and using a variety of audio techniques in the program Audacity. Then 826 Valencia led a mini writing workshop on personal creative nonfiction. Teachers walked through the steps of identifying pieces of their narratives that could work as sound elements and recorded podcasts in the 826 writing lab. Like all SLANT workshops, this activity was designed to take back to the classroom and try with students!

We’d like to thank the teachers who joined us and bravely recorded their podcasts at 826, and we’d like to thank Matt Williams from KQED‘s education department and Kim Campisano from SLANT for co-hosting the workshop. We can’t wait to hear some science-inspired narratives from classrooms around the city very soon!