Learn how one educator used cross-curricular PBL units to help students understand the effects of climate change while staying solution focused. In one unit students wrote and proposed climate driven migration legislation. The other explored ocean acidification through science fiction writing.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will leave with two ready to use units developing climate literacy as well as real life examples of how to use PBL in the science classroom.

SPEAKERS:
Sara Plowman

Humans’ arms race with pathogens shaped history and influences life today. Understanding the evolutionary ecology of diseases, including H1N1 flu, COVID and HIV, that infect two or more species is vital to understanding current and future threats to individual and public health.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn to use our fascinating relationships with infectious disease in demonstrating the importance of evolutionary and ecological concepts in medical practice, public health, and students’ lives.

SPEAKERS:
Joseph Levine

Learn how to engage your students with the rich phenomena of a runner that fails to maintain homeostasis, using an open-source NGSS-driven unit.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will deepen their understanding of how to use phenomena-driven three-dimensional instruction to attend to student interest and relevance, develop a clear vision for how to use modeling to teach homeostasis, and will learn how to access, use, and a use, and adapt a free EQuIP-reviewed unit.

SPEAKERS:
Devin Foschi, Joy Otibu

Engage in conversations for how to use the three dimensions of the NGSS and the NRC Framework, storylines, driving questions, and hands-on activities to engage students in science and engineering skills while making sense of how SOIL affects the food that we grow and eat in a new storyline unit.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will engage in activities that are part of a new storyline unit on how soil affects the types and quantities of food commodities grown. Topics include what is soil, the effect of soil on plant growth, movement of matter and energy through soils, and how to decrease human impact on soils.

SPEAKERS:
Michael Tobin, Chris Embry Mohr

Learn a possible pathway for facilitating your science department's transition from traditional grading to standards-based grading. See examples showcasing the integration of the SEPs to guide instruction and assessment, and foster your students' journey toward mastering essential science skills.

TAKEAWAYS:
You will see how the SEPs can be used to frame standards-based instruction and assessment in an authentic way. Participants will gain insights from specific examples of rubrics, success criteria, practice, and assessments that have been classroom-tested in biological and physical science classrooms.

SPEAKERS:
Molly Sponseller, Kellie Dean

Learn a variety of implementation strategies to include debating/ argumentation into your science curriculum. Strategies include ideas such as Four Corners, tabletop debate, and full class debate. Ways to differentiate strategies to accommodate different learning abilities will be discussed.

TAKEAWAYS:
Educators will be able to implement different debating/ argumentation strategies into their science curriculum.

SPEAKERS:
Melanie Craig

How did humans turn a simple grass into a staple food crop? And, how are scientists working to ensure that corn can continue to feed billions of people as the world’s climate changes? In this new storyline on popcorn, students will think like scientists as they enjoy this yummy snack food.

TAKEAWAYS:
Explore a new storyline on popcorn that engages students in constructing explanations from evidence. Students investigate how teosinte evolved into one of the most important food crops on Earth-corn, as they learn about genetics and future evolution in order to meet the needs of a changing planet.

SPEAKERS:
Chris Embry Mohr

Explore the relationship between adaptations and niches using an interactive lesson from the National Center for Science Education. This activity uses phenotypes and karyotypes to illustrate the complexities of creating phylogenetic trees of marsupials and placental mammals.

TAKEAWAYS:
The goal of this session is for participants to experience a lesson from students’ perspective and take the free materials back to their own classrooms. The purpose of the activity is to address the NGSS standards related to evidence for evolution, natural selection, and adaptation.

SPEAKERS:
Blake Touchet

Student game design is presented as an approach to engineering design practices and hands-on learning within a Biology classroom, including the outcomes of a year-long science game design course. Participants will witness research outputs, and receive tools for their classroom implementation.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will gain scaffolding tools to implement game design in their classroom as a part of their science curriculum while addressing NGSS standards and science and engineering practices, designed to minimize instructional material cost while creating an authentic learning experience.

SPEAKERS:
Rebekah Snyder

Participants will receive a worm culture to interact with, record observations, and conduct research to determine and list facts about the worms. They will then use the results of this research to write a nuanced claim about the worm culture, using facts as evidence to explain their reasoning.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn about hands-on activities that engage students in science and research, and strategies to improve evidence-based writing in the science classroom including a CER checklist, scaffolding techniques for struggling writers, vocabulary banks, sentence frames, and peer feedback.

SPEAKERS:
Maureen Barclay, Amy Douglas Kendrick

This will focus on successful implementation of teaching strategies that aim to challenge diverse learners using differentiation. Examples include: dynamic models as alternatives to lectures, note-taking strategies, creating leveled practices, and review sessions with differentiated stations.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will walk away with several ideas to create materials for a range of learner needs that have been implemented in a variety of science disciplines as well as multiple levels including Special Education & AP. Learn ways to adjust the curriculum to encourage student independence & agency.

SPEAKERS:
John Deppong, Kellie Dean, Lauren LaSota, Molly Sponseller

The true potential of AI lies in its fusion with design thinking. Leveraging these, educators can tailor learning experiences and create engaging equitable design challenges that unlock the skills required to thrive in an AI-infused workforce. Access a unique toolkit to futureproof your classroom.

TAKEAWAYS:
This interactive workshop empowers teachers to futureproof their classrooms using design thinking and AI-driven strategies to enhance instruction. At the heart are design thinking principles: a learner-centered approach that honors student agency and values human experiences for any grade level.

SPEAKERS:
Jeff Schneider

Reinforce genetics concepts by exploring the molecular processes technologies employ to understand genetic disorders. Experience an interactive curriculum module that is a window into biochemical processes at different levels from DNA to protein, and the technologies that illuminate them.

TAKEAWAYS:
How to access and use a free, NGSS-friendly curriculum module that helps students gain a deeper understanding of molecular genetics and the ways genetic disorders affect the pathway from DNA to a functioning protein by exploring the biochemical processes that technologies employ to detect a disorder.

SPEAKERS:
Molly Malone

Experience two instructional routines supporting the integration of NGSS Crosscutting Concepts; learn how these routines can be used to foster belonging in science classrooms.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn the steps for how to facilitate instructional routines that encourage student thinking and discourse, using CCCs to support sense making of phenomena and promote a sense of belonging in science classrooms.

SPEAKERS:
Joy Otibu, Charles Link, Dora Kastel

Work through NSTA's Beyond Representation and BSCS Science Learning's Humane Genetics Program, has given me the tools to transform more traditional curriculum to include Social Justice Standards as a way of teaching and learning in science classes. Transformed units and lessons will be shared.

TAKEAWAYS:
Social Justice Standards can and should be a way of teaching and learning science along side NGSS. Attendees will see examples of how this can be done in the Biology and Environmental Science classrooms.

SPEAKERS:
Lizabeth Peterson

We will present the efforts of twenty secondary schools and partners at Stanford University to create authentic Drosophila-based research experiences, and how you can too!

TAKEAWAYS:
Through coordination with the Stan-X Network of schools, students and teachers can learn science through authentic, open-ended, publishable genetics research.

SPEAKERS:
Nicole Lantz

Connecting audiences to deep-sea habitats and the impacts humans can have on them is challenging. Creative hands-on activities, stunning videos, and talking to scientists at sea in real time brings an important ecosystem they may never see to them instead!

TAKEAWAYS:
After hands-on demonstrations of new, interactive educational materials and a viewing of highlights from livestream broadcasts, formal and informal educators and community leaders will leave the session with access to ready-to-use deep-sea activities for all ages, from “K to Gray".

SPEAKERS:
Sasha Francis

Teachers use Claim Evidence Reasoning (CER) to support students’ construction of explanations using common science discourse. In this workshop, teachers will experience how to use evidence-reasoning-claim to make sense of a phenomenon and then CER to write a scientific explanation of the phenomenon.

TAKEAWAYS:
Gain an understanding of how to use CER as ERC during sense-making activities. A small shift in a popular strategy will help teachers facilitate deeper sense-making with their students. Leave with materials and techniques to apply this strategy to multiple grade levels and phenomena.

SPEAKERS:
Meredith Schwendemann, Brooke Whitworth, Megan Hamada

Engage in inquiry-based, hands-on activities to explore ecosystem interdependence and the impacts of human activities on environmental health and sustainability. Develop 3D models and graphs and take part in lively simulations, all matched to NGSS.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn ways to guide students’ inquiry around key environmental challenges, using hands-on simulations and modeling activities that employ 3D learning in an inclusive biology classroom.

SPEAKERS:
Sheila Lumod

This session will engage participants in authentic conservation decision-making practices using dynamic, interactive tools on the Half-Earth Project Map and Map of Life. The activities shared empower learners to evaluate biodiversity distribution, protected areas, and human impacts.

TAKEAWAYS:
Human activity adversely impacts biodiversity through habitat destruction, pollution, invasive species, and climate change. However, data-driven tech tools help ensure conservation decisions protect areas with the highest biodiversity with equitable benefits to humans.

SPEAKERS:
Jocelyn Miller

Participants will use cell phone adapters and microscopes to capture photos/videos of microbes present in pond water, then Screen Mirror them via Apple TV. Participants will record observations of organisms, briefly research them, and develop a CER style writing to justify their identification.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn about hands-on activities that engage students in science and research, and strategies to improve evidence-based writing in the science classroom including a CER checklist, scaffolding techniques for struggling writers, vocabulary banks, sentence frames, and peer feedback.

SPEAKERS:
Maureen Barclay, Amy Douglas Kendrick

ASSET, an NIH SEPA funded program at WashU STL, offers modules that nurture students’ innate curiosity through hands-on exploration of biology using safe, easily manipulated model organism, Tetrahymena. Modules are paired with FREE lending materials designed to stimulate inquiry-based learning.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will be introduced to ASSET and will conduct modified lab activities to see how ASSET can be used in the classroom to address topics like microscope use, cell parts and processes (phagocytosis & osmolarity), chemotaxis, and the effects of smoking, vaping, and alcohol on living cells.

SPEAKERS:
Courtney Hausner, Anne Deken, Alexandra Forgerson

To ensure a resilient future, we must engage students with phenomena and problems found in food systems and agriculture. This session explores how food and agriculture connect to students’ lives and presents a highly relevant and authentic science context immersed in the Three Dimensions of NGSS.

TAKEAWAYS:
Educators will see successful examples of authentic phenomena and problems found within food and agricultural systems that are relevant to all students. We will demonstrate how all three dimensions of NGSS are used to make sense of these real-world phenomena and problems.

SPEAKERS:
Rick Henningfeld, Craig Rebich, Brian Beierle

This workshop will introduce attendees to a localized OpenSciEd unit designed to help 9th graders understand why New Orleans floods so frequently from everyday rainstorms. We will engage in student hat to investigate one of the causes of this issue and reflect on implications for other classrooms.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn how to use modeling to draw conclusions about complex environmental science ideas that are relevant to students’ everyday lives. They will leave with a unit storyline and ideas for how to apply these strategies in different contexts.

SPEAKERS:
Claire Anderson, Lindsey Mohan

Learn how to engage your students with the rich phenomena around the mismatch between our human body physiology and our modern environment, using a free, EQuIP-reviewed unit designed for HS NGSS.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will develop a vision for how to use engineering practices to teach genetics and epigenetics while creating a more engaging and inclusive classroom environment for all learners.

SPEAKERS:
Joy Otibu, Devin Foschi