2025 Philadelphia National Conference

March 26-29, 2025

4/9/2026 12:00PM EST: All sessions added to My Agenda prior to this notice have been exported to the mobile app and will be visible in the app when you login, under your profile. Any sessions added now will also have to be added in the app.
Grade Level
Topics

Strands

Session Type

Pathway/Course

 

Rooms and times subject to change.
12 results
Save up to 50 sessions in your agenda.

Teaching about the Intersections of Biology, Race, and Racism: Strategies, Curriculum Resources, and Research

Thursday, March 27 • 8:00 AM - 9:00 AM

Pennsylvania Convention Center - 203 B


Show Details

Racism is prevalent in our society. Participants will examine resources for engaging students in respectful and productive activity that contrast the social construct of race with scientific understandings of genetics. Examples of how science education can be a form of social justice will be shared.

TAKEAWAYS:
Anti-racism work in science education is difficult. Resources to support teachers in engaging in controversial topics will be examined and used by participants to rehearse effective pedagogical moves in engaging in classroom discussions of racism and science. Curricular resources will be shared.

SPEAKERS:
Deb Morrison, Kelsie Fowler

Adapting Instructional Materials to Focus on Climate Justice: A High School OpenSciEd Physics Example

Thursday, March 27 • 12:30 PM - 2:00 PM

Pennsylvania Convention Center - 203 B


Show Details

We show how instructional materials can be adapted for local contexts—and how to elevate issues of climate justice and ethical responses to the climate crisis. Participants will learn about how a high school physics unit from OpenSciEd was adapted to attend to Indigenous land rights and sovereignty.

TAKEAWAYS:
In relation to science and engineering projects in society (e.g., associated with the energy transition, ecological restoration, urban development), teachers will learn how to engage students in exploring moral and ethical dimensions of trade-offs in project approaches.

SPEAKERS:
Philip Bell, Kelsie Fowler

Engaging Students in Talking about Indigenous Sovereignty and Climate Systems

Thursday, March 27 • 2:20 PM - 3:20 PM

Pennsylvania Convention Center - 203 B


Show Details

Youth need opportunities to learn about green colonialism and how Native Science and Indigenous sovereignty are fundamental to addressing the climate emergency. Workshop participants will engage in talk activities designed to support non-Indigenous youth in learning and processing these topics.

TAKEAWAYS:
This session will support educators in understanding that climate experts across the globe are calling for the broad recognition of Indigenous sovereignty and climate expertise as fundamental to mitigating climate change and building a just future.

SPEAKERS:
Philip Bell, Kelsie Fowler, Deb Morrison

Climate Justice Overview: Priority Areas and Educational Approaches

Thursday, March 27 • 3:40 PM - 4:40 PM

Pennsylvania Convention Center - 203 B


Show Details

Science education has a key role to play in supporting a just transition to the climate crisis. Participants will learn about 20 priority areas associated with climate and environmental justice—and explore educational approaches, resources, and groups related to these areas.

TAKEAWAYS:
Working towards climate justice involves a multifaceted set of issues and priorities. Teachers will identify which priority areas relate to their goals and context and learn about related resources. A climate justice framework will help teachers learn about different dimensions of climate justice.

SPEAKERS:
Philip Bell, Kelsie Fowler, Deb Morrison, Nancy Price

Supporting Equity and Justice Through Science Instruction: The Road Traveled and the One Ahead

Friday, March 28 • 8:00 AM - 9:00 AM

Pennsylvania Convention Center - 203 B


Show Details

All students have the right to develop a deep understanding of how the world works in ways that support their personal goals and the interests of their community. Come explore how instruction can more equitably support science learning that is consequential to your students and their communities.

TAKEAWAYS:
Teachers will develop an understanding of an equity project framework for science education for supporting professional learning and implementation projects. They will learn how open education resources (http://stemteachingtools.org/) can help them develop equitable approaches to science teaching.

SPEAKERS:
Philip Bell

Using Art Pedagogy in Science Class to Teach Climate Justice

Friday, March 28 • 9:20 AM - 10:20 AM

Pennsylvania Convention Center - 203 B


Show Details

Learn about making art as a way of understanding and engaging climate and environmental justice issues happening in our world today. We will engage the current science related to climate change and produce art to creatively explore and communicate just responses.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will come away understanding of how climate science can be engaged and represented through various artistic forms—and the pedagogical power of art pedagogy. People will use supplies in this workshop to make their own creations during the session.

SPEAKERS:
Philip Bell, Nancy Price

Supporting All Students in Making Sense of Phenomena By Building All of Their Intellectual Resources

Friday, March 28 • 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM

Pennsylvania Convention Center - 203 B


Show Details

Students bring amazing intellectual resources to make sense of science phenomena based on their personal and community experiences—including language, perspectives, gestures, and knowledge, interests, and values. Come learn how to notice and leverage those intellectual gifts in your teaching!

TAKEAWAYS:
Culturally responsive education supports student sensemaking and learning in science. Inclusive science strategies help teachers learn to see and leverage students’ diverse sense-making resources. These methods help us create and adapt curriculum that is equitable and centered on justice.

SPEAKERS:
Philip Bell, Nancy Price

Engaging in Climate Science Education Through Connections to Everyday Life, Equity, and Justice

Friday, March 28 • 2:40 PM - 3:40 PM

Pennsylvania Convention Center - 203 B


Show Details

Climate change is here. Come explore ways to teach about this that intersect with issues of justice and provide action for the future. This workshop will support educators in all grades and contexts, including those who can’t even say “climate change”!

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will leave with strategies for engaging in climate change and climate justice learning appropriate to grade band NGSS standards, climate and energy literacy standards, and for both school and community based learning contexts.

SPEAKERS:
Philip Bell, Deb Morrison, Kelsie Fowler

Supporting Youths’ Climate Emotions as Authentic Dimensions of Sensemaking

Friday, March 28 • 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Pennsylvania Convention Center - 203 B


Show Details

Understanding how to constructively respond to the diverse emotions youth express and experience as they engage in climate learning is essential work for educators. We will explore approaches for responding to youths’ eco-emotions, and how these can help students make better sense of the world.

TAKEAWAYS:
Climate anxiety is a sign of the times. This session gives attendees conceptual ideas as well as practical instructional activities to engage and channel student’s emotions. We will model teaching strategies and how to use students’ eco-emotions for furthering their scientific thinking and action.

SPEAKERS:
Kelsie Fowler, Deb Morrison

Making Science Instruction Compelling for All Students: How to Integrate the Cultural Lives of Your Students into Your Teaching

Saturday, March 29 • 8:30 AM - 10:00 AM

Pennsylvania Convention Center - 203 B


Show Details

This session highlights cultural dimensions of meaningful science learning. It showcases a powerful instructional technique for formative assessment called “self-documentation”—where students collect information related to a particular theme or topic in their everyday lives.

TAKEAWAYS:
Teachers learn how to promote equity by focusing on learning and teaching as an inherently cultural process. They develop a shared understanding of how cultural formative assessment can reveal the interests, experiences, and identities of students.

SPEAKERS:
Philip Bell, Tiffany Neill

Core Practices that Center Justice in Ambitious Teaching

Saturday, March 29 • 10:20 AM - 11:20 AM

Pennsylvania Convention Center - 203 B



(Only registered attendees may view session materials. Please login with your NSTA account to view.)
Core Practices that Center Justice in Ambitious Teaching

Show Details

Teachers developed the Justice-Centered Ambitious Science Teaching framework and practices as part of professional learning communities to be responsive to students' cultures and communities, build upon expansive forms of student meaning-making, and committed to disrupting injustice in society.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn about teaching practices aimed at building a welcoming, joyful, and critical community that is meaningful for youth and centers justice, elicits local stories, nurtures revisions of scientific thinking with diverse and local expertise, and uses science to advocate for justice.

SPEAKERS:
April Luehmann, Molly Wilson, Gavin Jenkins, Samantha Stickley, Hannah Cooke, Genna Wilson

Get Your Students Outside to Learn Science!

Saturday, March 29 • 11:40 AM - 1:10 PM

Pennsylvania Convention Center - 203 B


Show Details

How can science learning experiences help students develop ecological caring approaches to the living world? Come explore educational approaches to multispecies justice with us! Expanding how students connect to and care for the living world around them is vital at this time of climate crisis.

TAKEAWAYS:
People’s relationships to nature are culturally and historically rooted and are embedded in approaches to science teaching and learning. Science can be used to guide ecological caring responses and support the thriving of people and ecosystems.

SPEAKERS:
Philip Bell, Nancy Price, Kelsie Fowler

Back to Top