STEM teachers are under constant pressure to balance innovation in the classroom with heavy workloads. This session bridges AI in Education and Teacher Well-Being in STEM by highlighting practical, time-saving uses of artificial intelligence that directly support teaching and learning. Participants will explore freely available AI tools and clever strategies for applying them to everyday tasks such as generating lab rubrics, scaffolding assignments, and personalizing feedback. By streamlining routine work, these approaches free time for meaningful instruction and student engagement, with the added benefit of reducing stress and restoring balance for educators. The session emphasizes responsible and equitable use, ensuring AI integration supports all learners without adding complexity to the teacher’s role. Attendees will leave with a set of vetted tools, ready-to-use examples, and a personal action plan to strengthen STEM teaching while making professional life more manageable.

TAKEAWAYS:
Learn how freely available AI tools can lighten the STEM teacher workload while boosting student equity and engagement. Participants will leave with strategies that enhance student learning while helping STEM teachers focus on high-impact instruction and reclaim energy for what matters most.

SPEAKERS:
Chris Link, PhD

Artificial intelligence is reshaping science education, which includes bringing new possibilities to labs by changing the way students gather and analyze experimental data. In this immersive workshop, participants step into the role of students, using their smartphones to gather real-world data from simple hands-on experiments. Together, we will explore how AI-powered tools can make complex analysis accessible, deepen conceptual understanding, and spark student curiosity across STEM disciplines. The session highlights strategies to integrate AI into labs in ways that enhance—not replace—critical thinking, while giving teachers classroom-ready examples they can adapt immediately. Whether you teach physics, life sciences, or any STEM related course, this workshop offers a glimpse of the future of inquiry-based science learning.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will expand their understanding and increase their confidence working with AI tools to support student learning. This will include concrete examples that teachers can use in their own classrooms to help students recognize the power of AI in their learning journey.

SPEAKERS:
Helene McLaughlin, David Rakestraw

Come explore how immersive project-based learning can be paired with AI to deepen science learning and engagement! Put on your student hat as we guide you through the first steps of creating a virtual field trip to showcase your science sense-making. Then, practice using our new AI Feedback Tool - designed to align to the project’s content requirements and used to provide students formative or summative feedback. Experience first-hand how design-thinking helps students develop their ability to obtain, evaluate, and effectively communicate information. We’ll share lesson plans, examples of student work related to ecosystems and biodiversity (LS4.D and LS2.A), and access to our AI Feedback Tool. No fancy tech or tech expertise needed—just bring your curiosity and a laptop. You’ll leave with a virtual field trip of your own creation, experience using AI for the classroom, and free resources to help students connect science content with the world around them.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn how to guide students in creating virtual field trips and use AI-powered feedback to support rapid iteration, helping students refine their work, deepen science understanding, and connect learning to real-world phenomena.

SPEAKERS:
Rachel Wolf, Kyla Cook

AI is here to stay. Students and educators are increasingly interacting with AI tools, yet too many lack a clear sense of what those tools can, and shouldn’t do. Districts and schools need systemic sense-making, not one-off fixes. Curriculum, teacher professional learning, leadership planning, and community engagement must be aligned so that AI supports learning without introducing bias. Equity and ethics aren’t optional add-ons, they’re central. Students must learn to interrogate fairness, data use, and real-world impact. To act at scale, districts need regionally relevant guidance, strategic roadmaps, and trusted partners who translate research into practical policy, procurement, and classroom-ready practices that help leaders, teachers, and students decide when to use AI and when restraint is wiser. Join us in this interactive session to learn more about an emerging network of K-12 systems taking this on! You will hear real examples and learn about a framework for thinking more dee

TAKEAWAYS:
Session participants will learn about what colleagues in other districts and schools are doing as they utilize a systems-level approach, in addition to learning about a framework for planning for AI literacy for all students.

SPEAKERS:
Vanessa Lujan

Are you overwhelmed by lesson planning, grading, and trying to meet every student’s needs? You're not alone—and AI may be the support system you didn’t know you needed. In this hands-on workshop, discover how artificial intelligence tools can lighten your workload, enhance student engagement, and help you reclaim your time and energy. Learn how educators are using AI to automate routine tasks, personalize instruction, and reduce burnout—all without sacrificing rigor or creativity. Explore real classroom examples, test-drive AI tools like ChatGPT, Eduaide, Curipod, and Brisk Teaching to walk away with a ready-to-use toolkit and an actionable plan tailored to your classroom or school. Whether you're AI-curious or already experimenting, this session will equip you with practical strategies to teach smarter—not harder. Let AI take care of the busywork so you can focus on what matters most: inspiring the next generation of scientists.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will leave with a clear, personalized plan for using AI tools to reduce their daily workload—freeing up time and energy to focus on impactful teaching rather than administrative tasks.

SPEAKERS:
Kelly Mulligan

This presentation empowers science educators to integrate Artificial Intelligence for authentic inquiry in their classrooms. It demonstrates how various AI tools—including template-driven (e.g., MagicSchool.ai, Curipod), open-ended (e.g., ChatGPT, Google Gemini), and hybrid options (e.g., Notebook LM, Brisk Teaching)—can be utilized to align with and enhance Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs). Attendees will explore tailored prompts for both teachers and students, designed to maximize AI's potential in areas like generating testable questions, developing models, planning investigations, analyzing data, and constructing explanations. Practical strategies will be shared to help teachers apply AI tools to their lesson planning, and make complex science concepts more accessible and engaging for all learners

TAKEAWAYS:
This session is fundamentally a "how-to" guide for science educators, offering practical, actionable strategies and demonstrations for integrating diverse AI tools into their classrooms. It moves beyond theoretical concepts to provide concrete examples and tools that attendees can immediately apply.

SPEAKERS:
Leslie Suters, Jennifer Meadows, Kelly Moore, Andrea Henrie

As AI tools become more accessible in classrooms, educators face a challenge: how to use them to enhance teaching without disrupting the sensemaking that drives authentic learning. This session explores how teachers can leverage AI for efficiency, creativity, and feedback while keeping student thinking central. Participants will examine examples and strategies for using AI in planning, instruction, and assessment that position it as a partner—not a replacement—for human reasoning. Leave with practical tools to support student inquiry and ownership of ideas in an AI-rich world.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn how to make intentional choices about when and how to use AI—employing it to improve clarity, efficiency, or thinking—while avoiding uses that undermine authentic connections and student sensemaking.

SPEAKERS:
Sarah Delaney

Differentiating instruction in science can feel overwhelming—but AI can serve as a thought partner to help educators design engaging, student-centered experiences. In this interactive session, participants will explore practical ways AI can support lesson planning, scaffolding, and content creation for diverse learners. Through live demonstrations and collaborative activities, attendees will see how AI tools can generate differentiated lab tasks, reading passages, and assessments while preserving rigor and scientific accuracy. Educators will leave with strategies to harness AI for equity, engagement, and deeper learning in their classrooms.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn how to use AI as a thought partner to design differentiated, engaging science instruction that meets the needs of diverse learners.

SPEAKERS:
Stefany Palomba

It’s hard to miss the growing importance and capabilities of generative AI. While first seen as something that needed to be avoided, especially by students, views about its usefulness and appropriateness are evolving. In this session, we will explore different AI platforms, how they can be used to lighten teacher workload, and most importantly how they can be used by students as an instructional tool. We will leverage Science Olympiad’s recent work exploring AI as a learning and competition tool to provide teachers with concrete examples as well as brainstorm solutions to current challenges that attendees may be facing.

TAKEAWAYS:
By attending this session, attendees will gain a better sense of AI options and capabilities as well as how those capabilities can be used to lighten their load while at the same time engaging their students in meaningful learning and problem solving.

SPEAKERS:
John Loehr

AI stands for Artificial Intelligence, but could it also stand for Assisting and Innovating? This presentation will explore how educators can use Chat GPT, Magic School, School AI and other forms of AI to enhance our lessons, speed up the planning process, and introduce students to new ideas and technology. We will also discuss how to create boundaries in the classroom so that students and teachers use AI appropriately and safely.

TAKEAWAYS:
Teachers will leave with at least 3 new ideas for how to use AI, 1 lesson plan created by AI and a protocol for guiding students to use AI appropriately in the classroom.

SPEAKERS:
Juliana Brassfield

Participants will explore classroom-ready tools such as Google NotebookLM, Google Quick Draw, Khan Academy Khanmingo and the NGSS Phenomenon Generator in ChatGPT, among others. These tools can be used to spark inquiry, generate new phenomena, or add engaging twists to lessons teachers already know and love. The focus will be on easy integration: how to “spice up” what you already teach without needing to overhaul your curriculum. Teachers will also gain strategies for modeling responsible and ethical use of AI, helping students learn not just how to use AI, but how to use it wisely. They will also gain a clear vision for how AI can help students explore science and engineering concepts more deeply while preparing them for the future. Join us to see how AI in action can energize your classroom and empower your students to think, create, and explore like never before. This session can be used for any grade level or experience level.

TAKEAWAYS:
By the end of the session, teachers will walk away with ready-to-use ideas for incorporating AI into their STEM lessons, along with the confidence to step into the “unknown” of AI using practical and supportive strategies.

SPEAKERS:
Scott Woodard, Nicole Hucks, Alicia Yewcic

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming society and education at an unprecedented pace. As educators introduce AI concepts into their classrooms, it becomes increasingly vital for students to possess robust critical thinking skills and a solid understanding of the theory of knowledge. This interactive session explores why critical thinking must serve as the foundational skill set for any effective AI education program. Participants will engage with real-world examples and classroom-ready strategies, demonstrating how critical thinking and epistemology enable students to thoughtfully interact with AI technologies, evaluate ethical considerations, and discern biases.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will leave with a clear understanding of why critical thinking and epistemological frameworks are essential precursors to meaningful AI education.

SPEAKERS:
Helene McLaughlin