New tools, resources, and videos!
Hello Ambitious Science Teachers,
Over the last several years, the PASTEL (Promoting Asset-based Science Teaching for Emergent Language Learners) team, in partnership with 30 elementary teachers who graduated from the University of Washington, has built on AST to center justice, joy, science & literacy, race & language, and disability justice. We’d love for you to take a look. Here are our latest tools, resources, and videos. This project was funded by JSMF.
Building Reciprocity through Collaborative Storytelling
Designing for Authentic Home-School Dialogues
Disability Justice and Classrooms of Care & Interdependence
Building a Science Classroom of Interdependence and Care: Highlighting Linguistic Repertoires and Disability Justice
Webinar: Working Toward Justice-Centered, Multilingual Science and Literacy Pedagogies
Multilingual Science Theater
Choosing Authentic, Local Puzzling Phenomena
Making Time for Science through Cross-cutting and Interdisciplinary Connections
NARST 2026: Building Multilingual Classroom Cultures of Interdependence and Care in Elementary Science
¿Qué soluciones podemos crear para enfrentar la escasez de agua en un mundo cada vez más seco?: A Studio
PASTEL Project Staff
Recent Papers
- Von Esch, K., Betancourt, C., Thompson, J., Varghese, M., Li, H-S, & Venegas-Weber, P. (2025). Recontextualization in Multilingual Science Teacher Professional Learning, Science Education, Special Issue: Teacher learning and practice within organizational contexts.
- Venegas-Weber, P. & Thompson, J. (2024). Bilingual, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color teacher candidates’ translanguaging selves: Working with their multilingual assets and identities as future elementary science teachers, Journal of Research on Science Teaching Special Issue: Examining translanguaging in science and engineering education research.
- Venegas-Weber, P., Betancourt, C., Gonzales, G., Thompson, J., Varghese, M., & Li, H-J. (2024). Broadening what counts as science: Developing teacher candidates’ translanguaging stances in their Teacher Education Program towards translingual, multimodal, interdisciplinary, and justice-centered elementary science practices. Teaching and Teacher Education, 1-48.
- Venegas-Weber, P. & Thompson, J. “Unleashing the potential within”: Latine Teachers’
Pedagogical Integration of Their Students’ Language(s), Literacy Practices, and Content
Knowledge in Two-Way Bilingual Education (TWBE) Science Education. (Accepted: Peabody
Journal of Education.) - Betancourt, C. & Varghese, M. Ideological homecoming in PLC learning and elementary science justice-centered teaching (AERA, 2026)
- Von Esch, K., Li, H-J., Stewart, M., & Thompson, J. Cultivating Teachers’ Social Justice-Forward Adaptive Expertise Through Generative Professional Learning Spaces. (AERA, 2026)
- Lee, S.J., Ungco, C., & Thompson, J. Studios of Joy: Co-Designing for Expansive Teacher and Student Learning (AERA, 2026)
- Gonzales, G., Lee, S.J., Thompson, J. Centering family knowledge: Teacher-developed home-school connections pedagogies in the elementary science classroom (AERA, 2026)
Feel free to reach out through our contact form if you have any questions or comments.
Onward,
The Ambitious Science Teaching team
This site is primarily funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through Award #1907471 and #1315995