Top > Professional Development > Two PD Opportunities at the Bell!
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Teacher Professional Development Workshop: Minnesota Biodiversity Atlas
Tuesday, July 22–Wednesday, July 23, 2025
Time: 9am-3pm
Registration Fee: $65
In person at the Bell Museum, St Paul, MN
Recommended for teachers of grades 6-12
Register here
Join Bell Museum educators, scientific curators, and collection staff to explore the Minnesota Biodiversity Atlas and learn how to use it as a tool for your teaching. The Atlas is a virtual counterpart to the Bell Museum; it is an online digital resource offering public access to records of plants, animals, and fungi in the Bell’s scientific collections. It allows researchers – and your students – to explore how Minnesota’s species are responding to environmental change.
This workshop will focus on educating middle school teachers about Minnesota’s rich record of biodiversity, where important species were found in the past, where they can be found today, and what that means for the changing climate. We will work in groups to share and generate ideas about how to use the Atlas data for developing curriculum and standard-aligned activities, including creating species maps, developing area-specific checklists, and accessing digital images of natural history specimens. The workshop will also incorporate resources located onsite at the Bell Museum, including its Minnesota Journeys galleries, Touch & See Lab, outdoor Learning Landscape, and a new gallery about climate action, Imagine the Future.
About the Minnesota Biodiversity Atlas
The Atlas includes more than two million records of biodiversity from all seven continents. Contemporary observations and historic records are added to the Atlas as it continues to grow. So far, more than 1.6 million records are mapped to a geographic location, and over 500,000 digital images of specimens and field observations are searchable online. The Atlas is hosted by the Bell Museum and the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute. Funding for this project was provided by the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund.
Teacher Professional Development Workshop: Ancient Geology, Climate, and Biology
Tuesday, August 5-Wednesday, August 6, 2025
Time: 9am-3pm
Registration Fee: $65
In person at the Bell Museum, St Paul, MN
Designed for teachers of grades 6-8
Register here
Join the Bell Museum and researchers from the University of Minnesota’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences for this 2-day teacher development workshop. We will delve into environments of the past and learn how they teach us about environments of the present. How do Earth’s organisms impact their environment and how do changes in climate and environment impact the behaviors and the distribution of Earth’s organisms? Scientists will discuss their research questions, methods, and findings. They will provide resources for guiding student learning through engagement with experiments and data, fossil specimens, and the practices of science.
This workshop is designed to allow Middle School teachers (grades 6-8) to learn and practice hand-on activities to impact classroom learning. The workshop will make use of resources at the Bell Museum, including its Minnesota Journeys galleries, to illustrate core topics. Teachers will leave the workshop with standard-aligned activities for their classrooms.
Questions? Please email Sarah Riemer at sriemer@umn.edu
Minnesota science teachers should know about:
