Explore an innovative, skills-based approach to Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Medicine (STEMM) career discovery with CareerXplorer, a free tool from LabXchange. In this session, participants will experience how integrative tools can connect learners to a wide range of real-world STEMM opportunities through skill development. With interactive activities, participants will explore STEMM careers and discover how to empower students to connect their classroom learning with real-world career skills and chart their own futures in STEMM. Leave the workshop with practical strategies and lesson plan ideas for integrating these free digital career-connected resources into your own learning spaces and educational standards.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will gain practical tools and strategies to empower students to explore diverse STEMM careers through skills-based learning with CareerXplorer by LabXchange.

SPEAKERS:
Nicole Sjoblom

Take your students on the newest addition to the Crash Science in the Classroom website - an immersive 3D 360° virtual field trip inside the IIHS’s crash-testing facility—normally closed to the public. Designed with scaffolded content, the tour promotes equitable classroom practices by offering multimodal instructional strategies by blending 360° navigation with award-winning videos, guiding questions, exciting demos, English/Spanish captions, and hands-on activities to help include all students in self-paced learning. The tour brings experts on relevant and timely topics (i.e., car crashes, crash dummies, teen driving issues, crash avoidance technologies) into classrooms to integrate multi-disciplinary core ideas with science and engineering practices. This high-interest, place-based experience shows how science, engineering, and technology shape society (NGSS Crosscutting Concept) by driving real-world vehicle safety innovations while equipping students with life-saving knowledge.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants learn how to utilize a placed-based, interactive virtual tour paired with inquiry-based activities to foster students’ engagement and 3D learning by integrating STEM concepts and real-world data with vehicle crashworthiness, crash avoidance technologies, and teen driver safety.

SPEAKERS:
Pini Kalnite, Griff Jones

A key part of learning science is developing language to talk about your ideas. Traditional methods of introducing a science lesson or unit with a vocabulary list and definitions don’t help students develop understanding of science ideas or hold onto the language. In this session, participants will explore instructional strategies for introducing and earning science vocabulary that support understanding for all learners, and especially multilingual learners. Attendees will analyze classroom video to identify teacher moves that embed vocabulary instruction within investigations and discussions. Participants will leave with practical strategies for helping students actively develop and use new science terminology in their sensemaking.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn how to embed science vocabulary development within investigations and discussions to strengthen student sensemaking and support all learners, especially multilingual students.

SPEAKERS:
Elizabeth Pawlowski, Ji Sun Ham, Zoe Evans

How can we inspire young learners to see themselves as future innovators, problem-solvers, and leaders in STEM? This session explores how computer science and STEM can be meaningfully integrated into elementary classrooms in ways that are both engaging and accessible. In our district’s Imagineer Studio, teachers help students build problem-solving, algorithmic thinking, and logical reasoning skills while fostering a classroom culture that emphasizes creativity, collaboration, and innovation. Through hands-on STEM experiences and career-focused investigations, students begin to recognize clear connections between their classroom learning and real-world STEM careers. Participants will gain practical strategies and classroom-tested approaches that make STEM and computer science exciting, relevant, and aspirational, while equipping young learners to envision their own futures in STEM fields.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will leave this session with practical strategies to make STEM and computer science engaging, relevant, and tied to real-world careers, helping students develop skills and envision future opportunities in STEM fields.

SPEAKERS:
Sharon Wiggins, Christopher Bowen

Imagine a classroom where every child, regardless of background or ability, is engaged in collaborative science experiences that lead to meaningful learning outcomes. By harnessing the power of Learning Through Play and applying the principles of Universal Design for Learning, teachers can unlock meaningful science learning for every student. LEGO® Education teams up with industry experts to equip teachers with strategies and best practices to transform their science classrooms today. In this session, participants will get hands-on with a standards-aligned science lesson and explore how Learning Through Play and inclusive practices can create meaningful impact. This session empowers participants to think critically about their classroom needs and how to integrate best practices in order to enable every student to believe “science is for me”. Participants will walk away with concrete strategies to bring inclusive playful learning to their classroom.

TAKEAWAYS:
By harnessing the power of Learning Through Play and applying the principles of Universal Design for Learning, teachers can unlock meaningful science learning for every student. Participants will receive tips and tricks to bring inclusive playful learning to their classroom.

SPEAKERS:
Debi Hanuscin, Stacia Jackson

Come and explore the connections between the teaching and learning of science, CTE, and climate literacy, including intersections with workforce development.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees learn strategies for interweaving science, CTE, and climate learning into a variety of learning contexts and courses.

SPEAKERS:
Johanna Brown, Carol ODonnell, Deb Morrison

How can science departments expand offerings in ways that both engage students and strengthen enrollment? This session shares the step-by-step process of designing, launching, and refining a high school food science elective. Participants will learn how the course was structured to balance rigor with accessibility and connect chemistry, biology, and sustainability to real-world issues. The session will highlight strategies for curriculum design, lab experiences, assessments, and partnerships that made the course successful. Data on enrollment growth and student engagement will be shared, along with practical tools attendees can adapt to their own schools.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will leave with a roadmap and practical tools for developing a food science elective that engages students, boosts enrollment, and connects science learning to careers, sustainability, and everyday life.

SPEAKERS:
Yana Zubarev, Christopher Taylor

Ready to transform your science teaching? Discover Cultural Bridges - an equity strategy connecting students' lived experiences with NGSS phenomena through culturally responsive questioning. This hands-on workshop guides PreK-8 educators through adapting existing lessons using the Framework's emphasis on connecting to students' interests and experiences. Participants will experience student perspectives while transforming their chosen lesson using Cultural Bridge questions, witnessing increased engagement for multilingual learners and students who may face barriers to access or engagement. Leave with your revised lesson, implementation rubric, and practical tools. Bring any PreK-8 science lesson you teach. Address equity while maintaining three-dimensional learning rigor.

TAKEAWAYS:
Educators will adapt an existing science lesson using Cultural Bridge questions, experiencing how this simple addition transforms student engagement and deepens NGSS learning for multilingual learners and students who may face barriers to access or engagement.

SPEAKERS:
Almitra Berry

Career Lab 360 reimagines traditional career exploration by immersing students in hands-on, real-world tasks that mirror the responsibilities and problem-solving skills used across a wide range of professions. This session highlights how the Career Lab model transforms passive career awareness into active, skill-driven engagement through a series of interactive stations. Each station is designed to showcase a different career pathway, allowing students to rotate through experiences that connect classroom learning to authentic workforce applications. Participants will learn how this approach strengthens student understanding of career possibilities, builds foundational skills, and fosters a future-ready mindset. By partnering with community organizations and industry professionals, Career Lab 360 creates meaningful bridges between schools and the world of work, inspiring students to envision their future careers with clarity and confidence.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will be able to design and implement hands-on, experiential career stations in partnership with community and industry organizations that replicate real-world tasks and foster students’ problem-solving skills, career awareness, and future-ready mindsets.

SPEAKERS:
Kimberly Patti, Beverly Stambaugh

Learn about Educating for Environmental Change (EFEC), a free Indiana University program that helps educators teach the science and policy of climate change and participate in exemplar activities. This workshop will introduce the EFEC project and provide information on how teachers can get involved. The presenter will also facilitate exemplar activities from the project that are designed to engage students in the practice of scientific argumentation. Surfacing student thinking, addressing student misconceptions, and alignment to the NGSS will also be emphasized. The EFEC project is designed to elucidate and deepen understanding of environmental issues through hands-on lessons co-designed by IU's Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, the School of Education, and veteran K-12 science teachers. EFEC utilizes the following driving questions: how do we know the climate is changing; what are the impacts of these changes; what can be done moving forward; and how do we cultivate optimism in our students?

TAKEAWAYS:
The Educating for Environmental Change (EfEC) project utilizes the following driving questions: how do we know the climate is changing; what are the impacts of these changes; how can we mitigate these changes; and how do we cultivate optimism in our students while teaching them about climate change?

SPEAKERS:
Adam Scribner

Explore how place-based and environmental justice focused lessons transform science learning by connecting students’ lived experiences to local water systems. Participants will examine three NGSS aligned case studies: Salmon in the Klamath, San Gabriel Valley groundwater pollution, and Owens Valley water conflict, to see how Traditional Ecological Knowledge, local data collection, and storytelling deepen understanding of Living Earth systems. Attendees will engage in interdisciplinary strategies that integrate biology, earth science, and environmental policy while supporting multilingual and neurodiverse learners through visual data tools, community mapping, and reflective journaling. The workshop models assessments that invite students to think critically, act locally, and communicate scientifically. Teachers will leave with ready-to-use lesson frameworks demonstrating how equity-centered science increases engagement, equity, and agency in the STEM classroom.

TAKEAWAYS:
Teachers will gain ready-to-use, NGSS-aligned frameworks for teaching local water systems through place-based and environmental justice lenses. They will leave equipped to integrate storytelling, data analysis, and traditional ecological knowledge to engage all learners in equitable science.

SPEAKERS:
Mary Ann Ng

Explore the phenomena of shorebird migration to figure out the amazing journeys of these birds. Engage in What  Can I Eat investigation connecting to how internal and external features support survival. Many birds such as loons, hummingbirds and ospreys  migrate using the flyways but this  session focuses on the  migration data and flyway maps of sanderlings and other shorebirds. We will figure out how patterns of parental behavior influence migration..

We will demonstrate how to use phenomena-based learning tools as we explore the migration of a sanderling called Gilbert during a fall migration...

We will use an interactive read aloud guide to demonstrate the connections between science and literacy. Discussions will include how we leverage migration to do science and how we are explicitly  teaching  reading at the same time.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will leave with inquiry investigations to use in their classroom, access to real time data, strategies for using phenomena-based and place-based pedagogy in the elementary classroom, a read-aloud guide and a list of resources for using literary to teach science.,

SPEAKERS:
Kathy Renfrew

Discover innovative ways to bring bioethics into your classroom through the thought-provoking Playing God? podcast from The Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. Using real-world stories of medical advancement, this session highlights how storytelling can spark curiosity, invite critical dialogue, and engage all learners in exploring the intersection of science, ethics, and society.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn strategies to use real-life bioethical dilemmas from Playing God? to foster interdisciplinary, inclusive, and participatory science learning that develops students’ critical thinking and global awareness.

SPEAKERS:
Kenji Nomura

This session is for informal educators and K-12 educators interested in connecting with the informal community. We will use an engaging activity used in an informal education setting to explore how informal educators can "talk the talk" with K-12 teachers and align their work with the NGSS.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn strategies for aligning PL activities with the NGSS.

SPEAKERS:
Karen Hays, Leah Litz, Jesse Wilcox

Engaging place-based Pacific-Coast-centered storylines are presented that allow students to develop sensemaking skills for investigating up-to-date, research-driven climate science and how it relates to their home communities. For example, the Pacific Ocean El Niño / La Niña cycles greatly influence the climates of the U.S. West Coast, including regional temperature and precipitation variations and therefore the timing and locations of floods, droughts, and wildfires. Increased global warming due to increased greenhouse gases is amplifying some of these impact. A recent example is the Southern California wildfires of 2025, where global warming has now extended the lengths of La Niña droughts into January, so they are now overlapping with the start of the winter Santa Ana winds. Another example is how increased Pacific Ocean surface temperatures increase the likelihood of future atmospheric rivers that can cause severe flooding along parts of the West Coast.

TAKEAWAYS:
Students effectively develop sensemaking of NGSS performance expectations concerning weather and climate using place-based storylines anchored by Pacific Coast regional phenomena. Instructors will leave with multiple ideas for incorporating the latest climate science into their classrooms.

SPEAKERS:
Michael Wysession

This presentation is centered around the 2019 National Geographic Magazine, "The Race Issue". This is a mini-unit that engages secondary students in accountable talk about the science of race, diversity, and genetics. The unit includes microscopy, guided readings, hands-on activities, and discussion. Participants will leave with tools to share with their students that are safe and appropriate. Contextualizing race within the study of genetics allows students, and adults, to speak about misconceptions and experiences. This session will share differentiated lessons for learners at multiple levels (grades, IEPs, gifted). Prerequisites for this unit are an understanding of mitosis and meiosis, experience in accountable talk and microscopy. I have done this unit for 6 years with much success, I teach in a diverse, urban school.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will leave with a "camera-ready" unit, that is relevant and appropriate, to extend their current genetic lessons. The unit engages participants in the science behind the discussions of race, ethnicity, and diversity. The lesson is adaptable for all learners in a 7-12 life science class.

SPEAKERS:
Margaret Busker-Postlethwait

Discover incredible opportunities in STEM education with a range of NSTA-administered K-12 opportunities that engage through innovative programming and recognize achievement with amazing awards. We’ll explore programs and awards that are sure to ignite a passion for discovery and innovation.

TAKEAWAYS:
Empower your teaching with dynamic STEM programs and awards administered by NSTA as you learn about innovative opportunities to boost engagement and enthusiasm for K-12 students and teachers.

SPEAKERS:
Kathryn Lasky, Sue Whitsett, Brian Kutsch

ShakeAlert, the U.S. Earthquake Early Warning system, offers a powerful way to connect wave science, engineering, and public safety in the classroom. In this interactive workshop, participants will explore how ShakeAlert uses P- and S-waves, seismic networks, and GPS to provide alerts, and how these concepts align with NGSS standards (HS-PS4-5, HS-ETS1-3) and the crosscutting concept of systems. Teachers will engage with tools such as USGS Earthquake Hazards, IRIS Seismic Monitor, and jAmaSeis to analyze real earthquake data just as seismologists do. Participants will also experience in-class demonstrations, simulations, and models that make wave behavior tangible. Attendees will draft place-based lesson plans that integrate local seismic data and emphasize equity by considering how early warning technologies reach diverse communities. They will leave with templates, curated resources, and strategies for connecting science to personal protective action and public safety.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn how to use ShakeAlert and real-time seismic data to create place-based, NGSS-aligned lessons on waves, engineering solutions, personal protective action, and public safety—leaving with classroom-ready templates, resources, and equity-focused strategies.

SPEAKERS:
Eric Pyle, Ariel Raymond

Many biology students approach graphing as a purely procedural task, focusing on format selection and adherence to rubrics without fully engaging with its scientific significance. This roundtable session will delve into undergraduates' perceptions of the role of graphing in inquiry, argumentation, and identity within biology labs. Drawing on qualitative data from an introductory lab course and sociocultural theory (Vygotsky), we will examine how students' graphing perceptions may reflect or obscure their epistemic value. The discussion will feature student quotes, connections to identity (Lockhart et al., 2022), and insights into graphing as an effective tool for science communication (Alderfer, 2023). Participants can share strategies for reframing graphing as a meaningful and communicative practice that aligns with the NGSS.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will explore student perceptions of the purpose of graphing in biology labs, connect findings to science identity and Vygotsky’s theory, and discuss strategies for reframing graphing as a communicative, inquiry-based practice aligned with NGSS.

SPEAKERS:
Adriana Quiros

NAMs—including organs on a chip, 3D cell cultures, and computational models—are rapidly advancing scientific research and testing while reducing reliance on animal experimentation. These breakthroughs promise not only more relevant, human-based results, but also foreshadow the tools and technology that today’s students may encounter in higher education and future STEM careers. This roundtable will bring together experts in experimental methods, classroom teaching, and humane education, to discuss how NAMs are reshaping science and how K-12 educators can begin preparing students now. Participants are invited to consider how familiarity with NAMs may promote science literacy, college preparation and career-readiness, and discuss how these technologies could filter into classroom science practice. The session is intended for secondary teachers, curriculum developers, STEM coordinators, and any educators who are interested in humane, innovative teaching.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of NAMs, exploring potential connections to disciplinary core ideas and cross-cutting concepts, as well as practices to equip students with the competencies needed to thrive in a science landscape that is moving beyond animal use.

SPEAKERS:
Regina Terlau-Benford

Join us to explore how rural New Mexico elementary teachers teamed up with the NM Museum of Natural History & Science to create fossil kit lessons that bring local geology and paleontology into the classroom. You’ll discover how place-based partnerships can transform “fun” community activities into inclusive NGSS-aligned, standards-driven learning. Our teacher-tested 3rd and 4th grade fossil lessons feature storytelling connections to ELA, hands-on investigations, and easy-to-use assessments that work for all learners, including multilingual, neurodiverse, and culturally diverse students. Walk away with strategies for: (1) co-creating engaging lessons that reflect your students’ place and culture, (2) building stronger community partnerships, and (3) ideas for aligning participatory, real-world science with classroom standards. Come get inspired to design lessons that spark curiosity, honor equity, and are ready to be adapted to your community!

TAKEAWAYS:
Elementary teachers will leave equipped with strategies for: (1) co-creating engaging lessons that reflect your students’ place and culture, (2) building stronger community partnerships, and (3) ideas for aligning participatory, real-world science with classroom standards.

SPEAKERS:
Amy DeGroat, Deena Gould, Liz Gilroy

This poster highlights The Great Indoors, a free, NGSS-aligned climate and health unit for grades 6–8 that connects cutting-edge research with practical classroom strategies. Built around case studies and data-rich activities, the unit helps students explore how climate-driven events—such as wildfires, flooding, and pesticide use—affect indoor environments and human health. Students engage in experiments, analyze data, and use design thinking to propose solutions that build community resilience. Aligned with NGSS and the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the unit integrates frameworks such as Causal Learning in the Classroom (CliC) and the 5E instructional model. Lessons are modular, adaptable to various schedules, and accessible to diverse learners. Teachers will walk away with free, classroom-ready resources that support sensemaking, foster student problem-solving, and make climate science engaging and relevant to middle school learners.

TAKEAWAYS:
Teachers will discover a ready-to-use, research-backed climate and health unit. They’ll learn strategies to engage students with case studies, experiments, and design challenges that make climate science relevant, inclusive, and action-oriented.

SPEAKERS:
Chris Link, PhD

This interactive poster explores the fascinating world of native bumble bees and discover how creativity can inspire conservation! Visitors will learn to recognize local bumble bee species by their distinctive color patterns, behaviors, and preferred native plants. Participants will design and build “bee bracelets” that mimic real species—like the White-shouldered Bumble Bee or the Golden-belted Bumble Bee—while learning how these color combinations help bees communicate, defend, and thrive in their environments.    Educators and citizen scientists will receive free identification guides, plant lists, and data-collection resources to help them engage in citizen science projects such as Bumble Bee Watch and iNaturalist. The booth invites teachers of all grade levels to connect art, science, and stewardship—leaving with a tangible reminder of local biodiversity and a call to action to go outdoors, observe, and share their bee discoveries to support pollinator research and conservation.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn how to identify native bumble bees by color pattern and behavior, connect these traits to pollination ecology, and engage students or visitors in creative, hands-on activities that inspire participation in citizen science and local pollinator conservation.

SPEAKERS:
Claire Lannoye-Hall

Faculty websites are often the first entry point for students seeking research opportunities, yet they vary widely in showing inclusive values. We examine how biology faculty websites at Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) and non-MSIs include elements that welcome students from marginalized backgrounds. The main focus is the presence and content of inclusivity statements, referencing diversity, equity, and inclusion, provide resources, or support underrepresented students. Using qualitative coding, we analyze websites from a random sample of biology departments, examining inclusive factors such as lab member representation, personal information, and explicit anti-discrimination language. Results show that inclusivity statements remain rare overall, with minimal differences between MSI and non-MSI websites. By raising awareness of the role of faculty webpages in shaping belonging, this project advocates for intentional, equitable, and welcoming online spaces in biology education.

TAKEAWAYS:
This project is aimed towards research faculty. It highlights the importance of personal websites, and encourages those without one to create one. For faculty with a website, it is hoped to implement more inclusive and welcoming practices, increasing participation from minoritized groups in STEM.

SPEAKERS:
Taona Maphosa

In an era of eroding trust in science and rampant misinformation, educators need evidence-based resources to help students distinguish fact from fiction. Science Friday, a nonprofit media organization known for excellence in science journalism, offers free NGSS aligned resources to build science literacy. Our approach bridges the gap between scientific experts and the public through conversational science communication and storytelling. Our resources transform podcast content into engaging educational experiences that help students identify reliable sources, understand how science works, and evaluate claims confidently. The poster features ready-to-use materials across grade bands designed with equity in mind, including curated topic lists, hands-on STEM activities, and book club resources. Attendees will discover strategies for using trusted science media to foster conversations, develop critical thinking, and empower students as informed consumers of scientific information.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will gain NGSS-aligned strategies and free classroom resources to help students identify science misinformation, evaluate source credibility, and develop critical thinking skills for navigating today's information landscape across all grade levels.

SPEAKERS:
Sandra Roberts

This study examined the perceptions of agriculture and science-technology teachers regarding inquiry-based teaching in elementary schools. Through semi-open interviews with ten teachers, teaching methods and perceptions were explored with an emphasis on developing scientific and emotional identity. The results show differences between the curriculum: while the science-technology curriculum focuses on developing cognitive knowledge, the agriculture curriculum emphasizes emotional aspects and scientific identity. However, in practice, teachers in both fields integrate scientific identity into their teaching processes, emphasizing the connection of science to daily life, critical thinking, and the promotion of environmental values. The study highlights the importance of scientific identity in teaching as a tool for improving student engagement and motivation and recommends expanding the research to all teachers to deepen understanding and improve teaching methods.

TAKEAWAYS:
The research emphasizes the importance of developing scientific identity in inquiry-based learning in elementary school to increase student's engagement and motivation in science subjects. In class, teachers implement approaches that integrate scientific identity with cognitive and emotional skills.

SPEAKERS:
Amichai Yavlovich

Explore an April Earth Month calendar that offers a diverse range of daily engaging and educational activities designed to inspire environmental consciousness. The resource can be printed or distributed digitally, and all actions can be done at home or school. This provides attendees with an accessible tool to participate in events that promote a healthier, more sustainable future for our planet.

TAKEAWAYS:
Explore an April Earth Month calendar that offers a diverse range of daily engaging and educational activities designed to inspire environmental consciousness.

SPEAKERS:
Benjamin Charles

Our collaborative team of teachers and researchers share a culminating engineering task from a 3-week integrated STEM unit. As the unit uncovers disproportionate negative outcomes from the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically for linguistic minorities, the engineering task challenges students to develop a solution to the lack of timely health information in languages other than English. First, we describe the task: Students analyze and interpret data about linguistic diversity in neighborhoods (quantitative) as well as data on the affordances and limitations of artificial intelligence versus human translation (qualitative). Then, we demonstrate how based on the data, students argue for how and with whom to pilot the design of a multilingual health emergency alert system for a future health crisis. Finally, we describe how to evaluate the engineering design task using a rubric.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn our conceptual approach to developing an integrated engineering task that uses real-world data in the context of a future societal challenge (i.e., planning a response to a future health crisis using data from the COVID-19 pandemic).

SPEAKERS:
Stephen Kos, Alison Haas, Abigail Schwenger

The work of geoscientists is essential for protecting the environment, responding to natural hazards, and using resources responsibly – making geoscience careers vital and rewarding. To help students make these connections, the American Geosciences Institute (AGI) has developed free online resources that link student interests with global challenges and career pathways. A new Sustainability Interactive introduces real-world scenarios tied to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and encourages students to reflect on what matters most to them. When paired with AGI’s Career Explorer, which highlights geoscience-related careers, this resource provides teachers with engaging ways to help students explore how their interests align with sustainability issues and discover how geoscience can contribute to solutions. Educator resources, including lesson plans designed to help teachers integrate these applications into the classroom, will also be shared.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn about and can explore AGI’s free online applications that connect student interests with global sustainability challenges and geoscience careers.

SPEAKERS:
Lauren Brase, Lindsay Mossa

This transdisciplinary experience links human biology, geography, and economics through student exploration. Students use an interactive website to produce maps by comparing health-related and non-medical factors in their region. After reflecting on observed patterns, students turn to two maps of state ZIP codes with the lowest and highest median incomes. In groups balanced for individual strengths, they compare/contrast features of the two regions based on non-medical factors they explored in the opening activity. Students then enter data for a “patient” into a professional disease risk prediction calculator that incorporates ZIP codes. By varying the ZIP code, they compare output to see how predicted risk changes with "place." Finally, they develop a map visualization that explains how non-medical factors related to place act on health. The activity reflects Framework elements that include obtaining/evaluating/communicating information and identifying patterns and cause and effect.

TAKEAWAYS:
In this transdisciplinary activity, students observe phenomena, draw out patterns they detect, and then test the real-world health outcomes of these patterns for people based on where they live, arriving at a deep understanding of the role of place in human health.

SPEAKERS:
Emily Willingham

This poster highlights the Water Replenishment District’s free education programs designed to inspire students, teachers, and community members to become water-wise leaders. Through hands-on learning and discovery, participants explore: Water Careers – Introducing students to diverse opportunities in science, engineering, and environmental stewardship. Albert Robles Center Field Trips – Immersive experiences where students see water purification and sustainability in action. Eco Gardener Workshops – Community classes that teach sustainable landscaping and water conservation practices at home. Together, these programs connect classrooms and communities to the importance of protecting our most precious resource—water—while opening pathways to future careers and sustainable living.

TAKEAWAYS:
Educators will discover free WRD programs that bring real-world water science to life—field trips, Eco Gardener workshops, and career exploration—equipping students with hands-on learning and pathways to sustainability.

SPEAKERS:
Monica Sijder

Within in food education, Pilot Light has set the table, where they have created a national footprint by impacting students, teachers, and families in Chicago, NYC, and nationwide. They are now part of school culture with in 26 states, over 530 educators have received professional development, and over 24,640 have engaged in the program. Pilot Light has created a vision for a future where Food Education becomes an integral part of schools nationwide, through the leases of curiosity, community, collaboration, critical thinking, creativity. The standards: 1. Food connects us to each other. 2. Foods have sources and origins. 3. Food and the environment are interconnected. 4. Food behaviors are influenced by external and internal factors. 5. Food impacts health. 6. We can make informed food choices. Each of these standards can and have been integrated within the NGSS, Common Core, and SEL.

TAKEAWAYS:
Planting the seeds of change, Pilot Light has created a cultural shift in food education where they cultivated food standards, within the lenses of NGSS, Common Core, and SEL. One apple at a time....food education is here to stay!

SPEAKERS:
Lisa Ernst, Antoinette Schlobohm, NBCT, NCST

The research examined the perceptions of middle school science and technology teachers regarding the integration of bioethical dilemmas in teaching genetics, comparing religious and secular teachers. The qualitative research was based on semi-structured interviews with ten teachers with over five years of experience – five of them religious, teaching in state-religious schools, and five non-religious, teaching in state schools. The analysis of the interviews was conducted using a narrative approach and focused on identifying patterns of ethical thinking and attitudes towards moral dilemmas in the field of genetic counseling. The findings indicate that all teachers attribute importance to ethical discourse, but significant differences were found in the sources of authority and the types of ethical reasoning: the religious teachers relied on Jewish sources and religious considerations, while the non-religious emphasized state laws as a source of authority.

TAKEAWAYS:
Integration of bioethical dilemmas in teaching can contribute to the educational process by encouraging critical thinking and demonstrating the connection between science and society. The study highlights the need for professional development and teaching materials on ethics.

SPEAKERS:
Amichai Yavlovich

Elizabeth Zodda has five years of experience teaching an interdisciplinary course that includes both science and social studies. This course examines the relationship between the public, governing bodies, and scientific experts, and aims to develop a deep understanding in students of how science establishes itself as a cultural authority on truth. The course also explores contemporary issues that involve science but cannot be reduced to science alone and clarifies our values in relation to them. The course uses analytical approaches from history, sociology, and philosophy of science, and aims to help students improve their ability to make informed decisions about science-related issues in a democratic manner. In this session, we will explore the connections between this course and the NGSS statement on the Nature of Science and see how the approach can be used for a range of contemporary issues that some students may find controversial.

TAKEAWAYS:
Students are introduced to a novel approach to examining the contributions that science and non-science subjects can make to contemporary issues. They learn about the nature of science in an interdisciplinary course where they can compare the aims and values of science with those of other subjects.

SPEAKERS:
Elizabeth Zodda

In today’s classroom, adding STEM and 3D printing can transform learning by giving students hands-on experiences that bring their ideas to life. Along the way, they build critical thinking and problem-solving skills while practicing collaboration, creativity, and innovation. These tools provide real-world applications of learning and prepare students with the skills needed for future careers. By engaging in design and creation, students also develop adaptability and resilience, using technology as a bridge to master the essential skills of the 21st century. . Come ready learn practical strategies, see student-driven projects, and gain resources to bring hands-on, problem based creative learning into your classroom. Learn how to integrate this into all subject areas to bring STEM to life.

TAKEAWAYS:
Whether you're new to 3D printing or want to expand its use, this session will provide ideas, resources, and confidence to integrate 3D technology into your classroom. Learn how to use free software to bring science and engineering concepts to life, engaging students in real world projects.

SPEAKERS:
Scott Woodard, Nicole Hucks, Alicia Yewcic

St. Jude partners with 24 MSCS elementary schools annually, split into fall and spring cohorts of 12 schools each. Clubs run for 10 weeks, meeting once a week for one hour, Monday–Thursday, led by St. Jude College Interns. The curriculum includes two 5-week modules: first, a case study of Stacey, a 12-year-old girl diagnosed with osteosarcoma, exploring her symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, and recovery. Students learn key concepts in medicine and biology while developing empathy. The second module is an engineering challenge where students design and build a prosthetic hand capable of picking up a ping pong ball and placing it in a cup. This hands-on activity fosters creativity, teamwork, and problem-solving, connecting science to real-world innovation.

TAKEAWAYS:
The St. Jude Afterschool STEMM Club empowers elementary students with hands-on learning in medicine and engineering, combining empathy-driven case studies and creative design challenges to inspire future innovators.

SPEAKERS:
Krisderlawn Motley, Hailey Wolfe, Anika Britton

Undergraduate chemistry is often a gateway course with high enrollment but low success rates. Underrepresented minority students are disproportionately impacted, reducing diversity in STEM. One way to address this is by integrating social-psychological interventions, like Growth Mindset (GM) and Effective Learning Strategies (ELS) into the curriculum. This study discusses results from three semesters (Fall 2024–Fall 2025) in general chemistry courses at one institution. Students were randomly assigned to one of four groups (control, GM, ELS, GM+ELS) and completed different modular activities. Findings show students are reflecting more on their study habits and shifting how they handle challenges and failure in chemistry. This poster highlights both quantitative and qualitative outcomes, emphasizing the pedagogical design of the modules and their adaptability to other science classrooms, including high school and undergraduate sciences courses beyond chemistry.

TAKEAWAYS:
Educators will learn practical ways to integrate GM and ELS modules into science courses to better support diverse learners and improve persistence in STEM.

SPEAKERS:
Li Ye, Emily Pak

Hands-on science activities can present engagement challenges for some students, and teachers often lack training or resources to meet all learners' unique needs. The GLOBE Weather Pathways project developed and tested an approach to help middle school educators adapt a weather unit to support all students and explore STEM career pathways. The project included: 1) building a learning community of STEM educators, content and special education specialists, and professionals working in STEM; 2) professional learning on the NGSS-aligned, phenomena-driven GLOBE Weather curriculum; and 3) workshop time to adapt lessons for accessibility. This presentation will share project outcomes, including strategies educators used to adapt lessons, best practices for implementing universal design for learning (UDL) principles, and insights for building a professional learning community that supports inclusive science instruction.

TAKEAWAYS:
Discover how middle school educators adapted a weather curriculum to support all learners using universal design for learning (UDL) principles, and hear about strategies and best practices for building professional learning communities to support diverse student needs.

SPEAKERS:
Kirsten Johnson Nesbitt, Melissa Rummel

This study examined elementary teachers’ perceptions of integrating science, math, and ELA as part of interdisciplinary STEM teaching. Surveys and interviews with K–6 teachers showed that most believe students understand concepts better through integration than when subjects are taught separately. Teachers most often integrated ELA and science and reported the greatest confidence in this pairing, while full three-subject integration was less common and approached with lower confidence. Teachers highlighted benefits such as increased engagement, stronger conceptual connections, and multiple exposures. Key barriers included limited time, curriculum misalignment, resource shortages, and lack of collaboration. Supports identified to support integration included leveled nonfiction texts, hands-on investigations, targeted professional development, and dedicated planning time. A first-grade 5E light and sound unit was developed to model the integration of these subjects and will be shared.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will gain insight into K-6 teachers’ perceptions of integrating ELA, math, and science, including the benefits they see for students, the challenges of interdisciplinary teaching, and supports to assist interdisciplinary teaching, as well as an example interdisciplinary unit.

SPEAKERS:
Catherine Kurniawan, Heather Bliss, Kelly Hutchinson-Anderson

For many urban students, “nature” can feel far away, tucked into forests or national parks. But what if we flipped that idea on its head? This poster highlights a community-based science unit that helps students rediscover the ecosystems woven into their own neighborhoods. Set in Philadelphia, this freshwater ecology unit invites students to explore how rivers, streets, and people form one dynamic, interconnected system. It features classroom-ready examples that blend science, historical data, and art-based activism. The lessons combine three-dimensional NGSS practices with a historical lens to trace how local rivers and surrounding communities have transformed over time. Drawing inspiration from local storytelling and art movements, students design public-facing eco-art that raises awareness about the relationship between the city and nature. This poster is designed to help educators create meaningful community based and culturally relevant experiences for all learners.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will leave with adaptable strategies for designing place-based investigations that help students see nature and ecological systems not as something distant, but as part of their everyday urban experience woven into the streets, rivers, and rhythms of their own communities.

SPEAKERS:
Elizabeth Szablya

Join the NSTA PL committee for one or all of the interactive sessions in our Interdisciplinary Connections strand to explore the what, why, and how of interdisciplinary science teaching and learning. Each session will engage participants in interactive experiences to solve problems or investigate phenomena using science while focusing on a particular pairing of interdisciplinary opportunities. In this session, you'll explore how engaging in purposeful ELA activities during a phenomenon-based lesson is essential to both figuring out phenomena in science and boosting literacy development! Participants will engage in a science learning sequence in which they read, write, listen, and speak in authentic ways like scientists do and will discover how ELA can be leveraged and integrated into science instruction.

TAKEAWAYS:
Experience a model lesson and learn how to align ELA standards with authentic science practices like reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Discover how integrating purposeful ELA activities into phenomenon-based science boosts both literacy and science sensemaking.

SPEAKERS:
Rebecca Garelli, Rebecca Abbott, Kathy Renfrew, Jesse Wilcox

How do we cultivate students’ ability to read and understand quantitative displays quickly and confidently? At the heart of NGSS is developing students’ skill in detecting and interpreting patterns in the natural world (SEP-Analyzing and Interpreting Data; CC-Patterns). In this hands-on workshop, participants will step “into students’ shoes” for a sequence of short bell-ringer investigations using historical, real-word primary-source graphs pulled from the Library of Congress. Working in small groups, educators will analyze real historical datasets, practice inquiry prompts designed for 5–10-minute bell ringers, and use a versatile formative rubric to assess understanding. We will model scaffolds for multilingual learners, neurodiverse students, and learners with limited math confidence. Participants leave with bell-ringer packs (sample graphs, teacher prompts, exit tickets, and a 3-level formative rubric) that can be used the next day in diverse classrooms.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will use short, primary-source graphs/data sets as 5–10-minute bell ringers that prompt both discipline-specific and historic sensemaking while applying a concise 3-level formative rubric to quickly assess students’ quantitative sensemaking.

SPEAKERS:
Michael Apfeldorf, Michael Lowry

This session showcases a forward-thinking place-based curriculum model aligned with NGSS, integrating the expertise of local water authority professionals. Designed for middle-schools, the curriculum seamlessly connects scientific concepts with real-world applications, linking classroom learning directly to career opportunities in water management. This collaboration not only provides students with a practical understanding of environmental science but also inspires future career paths in the sector. The curriculum model equips students with essential skills, preparing them for success in the evolving job market. Attendees will discover how to adopt this model to advance science education and career readiness, laying the groundwork for further workforce development initiatives in schools.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn to implement a place-based NGSS-aligned curriculum that connects classroom learning to real-world careers through collaboration with industry professionals, enhancing student engagement and workforce readiness.

SPEAKERS:
Trevor Harder

Virtual field trips (VFTs) blend active, place-based learning with immersive digital exploration, connecting science content to real-world places. Come sample three VFT experiences to bring ecosystems and adaptations (LS2.A and LS4.C) to life! Introduce – Ecosystems BINGO: Travel across diverse U.S. ecosystems to investigate biotic and abiotic factors and see how they shape ecological communities. See if your team can complete your bingo board first! Develop – Create Your Own VFT: Step into the role of science communicator and design a virtual field trip that highlights the unique features and importance of an ecosystem of your choice. Apply – Alien Habitat Rescue: Apply your understanding of ecosystems by recommending a suitable Earth home for a stranded alien, based on its traits and needs. After learning about and exploring parts of these activities, participants will brainstorm ways they might use them in their classrooms. All related teacher and student resources will be shared.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will experience three ecosystem-focused virtual field trip activities and explore how place-based, immersive learning technology can support learners in making sense of science concepts through exploration, application, and creation.

SPEAKERS:
Sarah Williams-Habibi, Kyla Cook

Are you interested in helping students make sense of the phenomena in their communities? Are you looking for ways to incorporate more data in your science classroom? When sensemaking is focused on local phenomena, there are more opportunities to center students’ community and incorporate personal interests. This session, co-facilitated by the NSTA Professional Learning Team and Tuva, will highlight the value of using data from local phenomena in science learning.

TAKEAWAYS:
Data from local phenomena can be leveraged to create engaging learning for students. Participants will learn how to find and select local data that is instructionally productive, based on their goals for student learning and the data available.

SPEAKERS:
Jocelyn Foran, Brianna Reilly Oliveira

How can teachers design assessments that capture what students know, can do, and can explain across diverse high school science courses? This interactive session explores three-dimensional (3D) assessment strategies for Chemistry, IB Sports Science, and Forensic Science. Participants will examine freely available OER tasks, rubrics, and student work examples aligned to the NRC Framework, NGSS, and state standards. Through collaboration, teachers will adapt tasks for their own classrooms, taking into account issues of equity, accessibility, and disciplinary relevance.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will leave with ready-to-use, open-access 3D assessment tools and strategies to evaluate student sensemaking in Chemistry, IB Sports Science, and Forensic Science while addressing equity and instructional alignment.

SPEAKERS:
Ramon Reeves, Shannon Harris, Tracy Joyner, Dana Peeples

Discover data-driven activities that challenge environmental science students to investigate global population trends, resource use, and climate change connections. In this hands-on session, participants will engage with interactive simulations and data analysis that foster systems thinking, modeling, and defending arguments from evidence. Lessons connect directly to NGSS standards (HS-LS2, HS-ESS3) and APES topics including population ecology, land and water use, and global change. In collaborative groups, participants will analyze and discuss data sets from universities and international agencies to identify trends and patterns and make predictions. They will learn strategies to help students analyze complex sustainability challenges, evaluate solutions, and apply scientific reasoning to real-world environmental issues. Attendees will leave with adaptable classroom tools that promote critical thinking, environmental literacy, and informed decision-making.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn NGSS-aligned, hands-on activities that build students’ environmental awareness, data skills, and problem-solving abilities while inspiring them to take informed action on real-world sustainability challenges.

SPEAKERS:
Barbara Huth

"When developing skills in-game and an understanding of science concepts are one and the same - digital games can make learning dynamic, fun and accessible." Join Smithsonian Science Education Center’s Digital Team as we dive deeper into bringing scientific phenomena to life using game-based learning. In this discussion, we will be covering topics such as how our team uses storytelling and narratives to help contextualize complex scientific concepts, how games make certain scientific phenomena accessible, how games can be designed for all users, and how they can help support students with different learning styles. We are excited to share our skills, free learning resources, and enthusiasm with you all, so please join us in expanding learning through games.

TAKEAWAYS:
Digital Games are suited for and should be designed for play-based learning Storytelling and narratives help contextualize complex science concepts Games and sims can give access to scientific phenomena that can be too far away, too big, too small, or too inaccessible for any other reason

SPEAKERS:
Brian Mandell

In a world where algorithms compete for our students’ attention, teachers can reclaim the brain’s oldest—and most potent—learning technology: story. Neuroscience shows that when we hear a story, not a list of facts, our brains fire in synchrony—engaging emotion, motion, and imagination. In this session, teachers become narrative architects, designing lessons around the “And–But–Therefore” (ABT) framework to build curiosity, tension, and resolution. Through pop-culture examples, short demos, and brain-based insights, participants will see how storytelling transforms abstract STEM ideas into memorable, emotionally resonant learning. Attendees will leave ready to analyze any lesson for its narrative flow, reframe it with ABT, and harness the same storytelling circuitry that makes students binge their favorite shows—to make them binge your class instead.

TAKEAWAYS:
Teachers can become narrative architects—using story structure, neuroscience, and the ABT framework to design lessons that capture attention, spark curiosity, and make STEM ideas stick in an age of constant distraction.

SPEAKERS:
Matt Brady

The new Not Your Average Crash Test Dummy math/crash science lesson set is part of the IIHS’s free Crash Science in the Classroom program. These lessons explore the science behind crash test dummy development and crash test design while also teaching about statistical measures of central tendency and the concept of percentile. Using videos from the Deep Dive with Dummies series and ready to use activity sheets, students learn about the essential role of crash test dummies as scientific research instruments while also exploring how researchers use dummies to improve vehicle safety and reduce the risk of injury and death. They also analyze real-world crash test dummy data and collect and analyze their own similar data to determine mean, median, and mode and learn how to calculate percentiles in a data set. This interdisciplinary real-world example of how crash test dummy research is conducted illustrates the essential role of statistical analysis in data-driven research.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn how to use the free Deep Dive with Dummies video series and accompanying science and math/statistics lessons to learn about crash test dummies and how they are used in crash tests while also conducting statistical analyses of real-world data related to crash test dummies.

SPEAKERS:
Pini Kalnite, Griff Jones, Linda Jones

Multilingual learners bring diverse strengths, experiences, and language resources to the science classroom. Using a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) lens, this session explores how teachers can make intentional instructional choices to support meaningful participation for multilingual learners and benefit all students. Participants will analyze classroom video to identify how teachers proactively make choices that provide multiple ways for students to access ideas, engage in sensemaking, and communicate their thinking. Participants will leave with classroom-ready strategies for supporting multilingual learners.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn how to use a UDL-informed approach to design science instruction that leverages multilingual learners’ strengths and provides multiple pathways for all students to engage in sensemaking and communicate their thinking.

SPEAKERS:
Elizabeth Pawlowski, Ji Sun Ham, Zoe Evans

Discover how we've transformed our classrooms into innovation labs where sustainability meets technology with Invention Engine from the makers of Edison robots! The modular system's 15 connectable bits and programmable sensors (LEDs, motors, sound, temperature, etc.) easily attach to recyclable cardboard, making #STEMontheCheap accessible to all students. Experience how upper elementary and middle school students contribute to the Internet of Things by designing cardboard inventions controlled by the programmable hub that responds to real-world data. We've successfully aligned these invention projects with science and math standards, teaching concepts from forces and motion to sound, light, rotation, angles, and more through hands-on coding and construction. Teachers will leave with practical strategies for weaving invention-based projects into their curriculum—projects that spark engagement, build computational thinking, and empower every learner to bring innovative ideas to life.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will explore how invention-based learning with programmable sensors and simple materials can connect to science and math standards while empowering students to invent, problem-solve, and engage in creative STEM learning.

SPEAKERS:
Sara Torres, DaNel Hogan

Explore the possibilities of combining Science, Poetry, and Art as each is an act of discovery; all require keen observational skills, new perspectives, and thrive on productive communication. Understanding more about the Earth we share is a lifelong learning experience, a chance to broaden students’ horizons. Join award-winning Author/Poet Joan Bransfield Graham, a former teacher, traveler, and avid photographer, whose newest book is AWESOME EARTH:  Concrete Poems Celebrate Caves, Canyons, and Other Fascinating Landforms, for a world tour of landforms, poetry writing tips, ideas for student activities, and projects. What better way to examine the amazing landforms on our Earth than with shape itself--concrete poetry. Brevity, shape, and rhyme provide helpful clues for students acquiring English. Learn how to make shape poems, “mask” poems, and employ other “voices,” and writing techniques you can use next week, and every day, with your students! Handout will be available. K-5.

TAKEAWAYS:
Combine Science, Poetry, and Art to learn about some of our awesome landforms. Using Joan’s Five Favorite Poetry Tips, a variety of “voices,” and shape itself, you’ll learn how to help your students write their own poems to better understand our Earth’s “unfolding story” and their own stories.

SPEAKERS:
Joan Graham

Pandemics are complex phenomena that can be understood only by combining data, analyses, and insights from multiple scientific fields in truly interdisciplinary fashion. To set the stage, evidence-based storytelling about past pandemics can convey the magnitude of threats posed by pandemics and their long-lasting societal effects. Enhancing student awareness of the power of pandemics to change the course of human history can galvanize challenging exploration of data and insights from several fields. Host-pathogen interactions involve both pathogen physiology and host immune responses. The spread of disease depends on population dynamics of both pathogens and hosts, individual host behavior, and societal responses to outbreaks that include public health practices, vaccine availability, medical treatments, and communication about all of these dynamic processes. Only by combining all these perspectives and insights can society effectively address current and future global health crises.

TAKEAWAYS:
Understanding pandemics requires interdisciplinary knowledge and skills from multiple scientific fields and humanities. Storytelling about past pandemics enhances science understanding about disease emergence, spread, and consequences, and the importance of science policy, and societal action.

SPEAKERS:
Joseph Levine

This session introduces “A Misadventure in Teaching,” a Unit 5 storyline for AP Biology. Attendees will view a video about a biology student who learns she is colorblind and the unexpected turn of events that follow when she tells her parents. After the creation of a driving question board (DQB), participants will engage in inquiry activities, collect and analyze data, examine strategies to integrate FRQ practice with interactive notebooks, explore the use of SpiderWeb discussions, and learn how to apply initial and final models in storylining pedagogy. A brief question-and-answer session will conclude the session.

TAKEAWAYS:
After an introduction to the Lab Hamster AP Bio Unit 5 storyline, participants will leave with advanced knowledge and skills needed to implement student inquiry activities, apply science practices, and use pedagogical strategies that boost student engagement and reduce teacher workload.

SPEAKERS:
Laura Christiansen, Chandra Mitnik, Kristin Clements, Noel Pauller

Join us for boppin' lessons that address NGSS K-2 (force & motion, biomimicry, pollination). We integrate computational thinking, literacy, robots, science, and sense-making! We show how we adapted for students' cultural, and linguistic (Apache, Navajo, Spanish) backgrounds.

TAKEAWAYS:
The attendees will learn to analyze and implement interdisciplinary K-2 STEM teaching and learning using 3D NGSS standards, sense-making, aligned assessment and also integrates the language, culture, and place of a community in ways that position young students as leaders for their communities.

SPEAKERS:
Sophie Forbes, Mesina Kee, Deena Gould, Megan Smith

Join the NSTA PL committee for one or all of these sessions in our Interdisciplinary Connections strand to explore the what, why and how of interdisciplinary science teaching and learning. Each session will engage participants in interactive experiences to solve problems or investigate phenomena using science while focusing on a particular pairing of interdisciplinary opportunities. In this session, you will explore the connection between math and science. Attendees will engage in activities to demonstrate how math can be vertically aligned and supported throughout a student’s education, K-12. Participants will use the phenomenon of why some storms cause more damage as an example of how math and science learning are inextricably linked. Using real-world data to analyze and model storm effects and develop risk assessments using probability and statistics, attendees will learn how every age can collect and use real-world data to explore a phenomenon and increase their learning.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will explore how teaching math is inextricable from teaching science and be given examples of how that looks when vertically aligned in K-12. Participants will use real-life data to model a phenomenon mathematically, boosting both math and science understanding in a meaningful way.

SPEAKERS:
Holly Dong, Jesse Wilcox

This presentation explores how AI can support student sensemaking by guiding learners through the process of building models from regional, relevant datasets. Participants will see how interdisciplinary connections between science and statistics can be strengthened when students use AI as a scaffold to develop spreadsheet formulas, test predictions, and refine hypotheses. Rather than conducting analysis for them, AI prompts students with guiding questions and formula structures that empower them to explore correlations and relationships independently. This approach emphasizes student agency, encouraging learners to make predictions, brainstorm modeling strategies, and iteratively improve their work. By situating the activity in regional contexts, the project ensures relevance and authenticity, helping students connect data patterns to real-world phenomena. Educators will leave with strategies for integrating AI into classroom projects that deepen inquiry, foster statistical reasoning,

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will go on a data adventure exploring real datasets, uncovering variable relationships, and using AI as a supportive tool. This journey, appropriate for grades 6-12, deepens inquiry, strengthens modeling skills, and inspires more meaningful, data-driven learning.

SPEAKERS:
Melissa Stirling, Lora Gibbons, Theresa Goltermann

The process of science is driven by questions. While it’s easy to ask a general question, crafting an investigable question requires deeper thinking and intentionality. Doing so within the constraints of an existing dataset creates an additional challenge. This session, co-facilitated by the NSTA professional learning team and Tuva, will highlight strategies for helping students clarify what data they have to work with, determine the types of questions that can and cannot be answered with a given dataset, and frame six different types of questions about data.

TAKEAWAYS:
The types of questions you can ask depend on the data you have. Participants will learn how to guide students in identifying the structure and limits of the local datasets they encounter and in framing investigable questions that unlock the potential of data.

SPEAKERS:
Jocelyn Foran, Brianna Reilly Oliveira

While HQIM are an important lever that can impact students’ science experiences, access to HQIM is not consistent across schools and impacts marginalized students most. And, claims around NGSS in materials is common. How might educators sift through all this information to identify materials that best meet their students' needs? Participants will learn about the characteristics of high-quality phenomena, problems, and sensemaking and how to identify those characteristics when selecting and using materials. They will utilize sample lesson materials, identifying the presence and use of phenomena/problems and sensemaking and considering how these factors contribute to student experiences. Through guided practice and discussion, participants will learn how to begin to narrow materials selection through a critical lens. Participants will also orient to EdReports' free reviews of instructional materials and other resources for making materials selections for their school or classroom.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will gain an understanding of the characteristics of phenomena/problems and sensemaking opportunities and how to identify them in materials. With example lessons, they will use tools to evaluate materials for NGSS-aligned instruction in order to effectively identify aspects of quality.

SPEAKERS:
Sam Shaw

Join us for hands-on, critical thinking activities that explore electricity, magnetism, and how we can generate power from ocean energy and offshore wind. Engage your students with visualizations that make emerging technologies easier to understand while showing the power of water and wind in action.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will experience hands-on lessons—just as their students would—that demonstrate how ocean and wind energy can do work, while deepening understanding of the emerging technologies used to harness this power.

SPEAKERS:
Don Pruett, Jr.

Students are witnessing the effects of climate change and want both knowledge and hope. This workshop introduces Seeds to Solutions: a free, solutions-focused set of supplemental K–12 units designed to help educators integrate climate change and environmental justice into their practice. Using an inquiry-based, storyline instructional approach, this interdisciplinary curriculum supports data literacy, place-based learning, and the development of models to explain the effects of climate change while allowing students a chance to plan local solutions. Lessons are aligned to California Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), and participants will learn how to adapt the units to their own state/local context. Participants will experience a sample lesson that fosters student inquiry and addresses different learning styles. The sample lesson is from a middle school unit, but the program offers resources for all K–12 educators.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will experience a sample middle school lesson to see how the Seeds to Solutions storyline instructional model engages a wide range of learners in grades K–12. Participants learn how to create a sense of agency in the face of climate change and adapt units to their state/local context.

SPEAKERS:
Holly Steele

This interactive workshop supports teachers of grades 3–5 in designing interdisciplinary science experiences related to earthquakes for a variety of learners. Participants explore NGSS 4-PS4-1 by modeling P- and S-seismic waves with a long spring, then analyze seismograms from a recent earthquake to see how waves travel at different speeds and affect matter differently. Building on this, students investigate the ShakeAlert Earthquake Early Warning System as one way to reduce the impacts of earthquakes. Then, to address 4-ESS3-2, they investigate their own preparedness ideas so they can compare multiple solutions to keep themselves and their communities safer. The workshop also provides strategies for integrating reading, storytelling, health, and other science standards like 5-ESS2-1 by modeling tsunamis to illustrate interactions among Earth’s spheres. Educators will leave equipped to bring authentic, place-based interdisciplinary, place-based science learning to their students.

TAKEAWAYS:
Teachers will learn to guide students in participatory science by modeling seismic waves, analyzing real earthquake data, exploring ShakeAlert and other preparedness solutions, and connecting science with reading, health, and Earth systems standards through interdisciplinary, place-based learning.

SPEAKERS:
Katrina Arras

In this session, participants will be introduced to practices used in visualizing data. Presenters Sara Moren and Rachel Langley collaboratively teach middle school math and science. This year, they worked together to enhance their students' understanding of why and how data is used in making decisions. Using puzzle cubes to teach students about data collection, data organization, and using proportional reasoning to make predictions, the presenters will share what they did, what worked, and what ideas they have for further development of these lessons.

TAKEAWAYS:
Using puzzle cubes, participants will engage in a hands-on activity that can be used in both middle school math and science classrooms to help students learn how to visualize data.

SPEAKERS:
Rachel Langley, Sara Moren

What happens when art becomes a lens for exploring science and intelligence? In this hands-on workshop, participants will investigate how nature, technology, and humanity intertwine to shape our future. Attendees will engage in participatory science by observing natural and technological artifacts, sketching and recording patterns, and comparing their perceptions with an AI’s interpretation of the same objects. These layered perspectives will be transformed into collaborative “intelligence tiles” and assembled into a collective mural. Along the way, facilitators will model how storytelling, place-based exploration, and cross-curricular art-making can deepen student engagement and enhance sensemaking. Participants will leave with a replicable process for classroom use: observe, analyze, translate across mediums, and create. This session highlights how art-infused science learning can connect students to timely conversations about intelligence, technology, and humanity.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn how to blend observation, participatory science, AI, and art-making into a replicable process that helps students explore the interplay of natural, human, and digital intelligence through hands-on, interdisciplinary learning.

SPEAKERS:
Lisa Robinson, Katie Musick, Jesse Wren

Teaching about global change is challenging. The interdisciplinary science is complex, because it involves far more than “just” climate change —infernally complicated on its own. As important as climate change is, its effects on ecosystems and the biosphere act alongside other anthropogenic alterations to the biosphere including land-use change, industrial and agricultural practices, and more. To make things even more difficult, today’s students need the cognitive and analytical tools necessary to handle a tidal wave of misconceptions, misinformation, and disinformation. Misconceptions arise from gaps in knowledge. Misinformation and disinformation arise from intentional distortion for political, economic, or ideological reasons. So we must help students achieve functional scientific literacy: the ability to evaluate sources, interpret data, recognize logical fallacies or manipulative rhetoric, and make scientifically-informed decisions aimed at sustainable societal goals.

TAKEAWAYS:
Teaching about global change requires a full-court press to create an interdisciplinary effort involving ecology, geology, climatology, earth science, population biology, oceanography, atmospheric science, as well as socially-informed efforts to counter rampant misinformation and disinformation.

SPEAKERS:
Joseph Levine

How can we break down barriers between classrooms and empower students as agents of change in their communities? This session showcases a replicable partnership between UCI, AUHSD, and IUSD that is #trendinginscienceeducation. Eleven teachers across 7 disciplines and 6 schools participated in professional learning to co-design and enact climate justice units. Using a co-developed, transdisciplinary framework, teachers collaborated across content areas and moved beyond sensemaking to help students develop critical agency, care for human and more-than-human communities, and take informed action. Units investigating local food waste and the community impacts of genetically modified foods demonstrate our core finding: when students tackle authentic problems, they develop profound civic agency. Attendees will learn best practice to build similar partnerships and foster compassion and community action in their own classrooms.

TAKEAWAYS:
Explore a university-district partnership where educators from multiple content areas craft transdisciplinary climate justice units. This model merges diverse knowledge systems, empowering students as change agents to foster civic agency through local issue engagement.

SPEAKERS:
Jessica Yett, Hosun Kang, Becky Friedland

One of the hardest things to accomplish in the classroom environment is engaging students in the true nature of science. Not the cookbook labs that many of us grew up with (the ones where we knew the answer before we even set foot in the lab) but the adventure of experimental design, data analysis, failure, and success. Real science is messy and there is no substitute in science education. It is something that we all strive for, engaging students in real science, but is much harder in practice. In this presentation, teachers will be provided with real examples of application within the classroom, across various levels of biology. Activities such as strawberry DNA extraction, project based science learning, citizen science opportunities, and student lead scientific research projects will be featured. By analyzing activities, scaffolding, rubrics, and student examples, teachers will leave with the knowledge of how (and when) to implement participatory science in the classroom.

TAKEAWAYS:
Teachers will leave with a clear understanding of participatory science, examples and provided activities (Google Drive Folder), and an increased comfort/confidence about integration in their own classroom.

SPEAKERS:
Marissa Hamilton

Build meaningful connections to hard-to-reach ocean ecosystems through real-world science! Learn about colorful corals, fascinating creatures, human impacts, seafloor mapping, underwater robots, and more through work happening right now to restore deep-sea coral communities injured by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Ready-to-use, NGSS-aligned activities include mock coral collections with remotely-operated vehicles, species ID video games, deep-sea mission board games, scavenger hunts, coloring pages, animated shorts, live connections with scientists at sea, and engaging videos. These resources serve diverse audiences including classroom teachers, informal educators, families, communities, and adults looking for careers in marine science. After hands-on demonstrations of interactive educational materials and a viewing of highlights from livestream broadcasts, participants will leave the session with a full understanding of how to use these free activities and resources for all ages.

TAKEAWAYS:
Connect all ages with deep-sea habitats, human impacts, tech, and careers using real-world science, play-based activities, and storytelling. Bring out-of-reach ecosystems to a range of learners through livestreams with scientists at sea, real footage of unseen places, skill-building games, and more.

SPEAKERS:
Sasha Francis

Discover how 3D printer pens can spark creativity and enhance STEM learning in your classroom. In this interactive workshop, participants will explore strategies for integrating 3D design into science and engineering lessons while experimenting with 3D printer pens. Each attendee will receive classroom ready educational resources. Facilitated by Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellows, the session highlights practical classroom ideas and innovative approaches to engage students in design thinking, engineering practices, and scientific exploration. Leave inspired, equipped, and ready to bring three-dimensional learning to life for your students. Free digital resources will be featured.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will become familiar with the operation of 3d printer pens and their utility in creating immersive hands-on activities that highlight applied materials concepts in science, engineering and mathematics.

SPEAKERS:
Natalie Woods, Phillip Cook

In this workshop, participants will engage in an immersive, hands-on investigation of thermal energy changes in chemical reactions through the lens of model rocketry. Using the “Feel the Heat” lesson plan from Estes Education, educators will explore how to design and test hot packs for a Moon mission, observe exothermic and endothermic reactions, and connect those experiences to the dramatic heat changes exhibited by model rocket engines during launch. The lesson supports multiple pedagogical priorities: inquiry, student agency (designing, testing, modifying), NGSS-aligned assessment, and cross-disciplinary integration (science + writing/art through creative assessments). Attendees will leave with practical strategies, materials, student assessments, and classroom-tested ideas for integrating this STEM lesson in ways that meet NGSS and other national/state standards.

TAKEAWAYS:
Discover a ready-to-use lesson that blends STEM, energy, and real-world science through rocketry. Gain strategies, assessments, and confidence to engage students in NGSS-aligned investigations of thermal energy and chemical reactions.

SPEAKERS:
Bela Power

This interactive workshop helps educators bridge classroom science concepts with real-world environmental action. While national in scope, the session highlights examples and opportunities specific to West Coast educators—illustrating how local environmental issues, from coastal monitoring to drought resilience, can anchor student inquiry and action. Participants will explore place-based and participatory science practices that engage students in locally relevant, data-driven investigations inspiring stewardship and problem-solving. Through a model lesson, teachers will learn to guide students in discussing community needs through the lens of sustainability goals, helping them connect science learning with purposeful action. By the end of the workshop, participants will have access to free resources, databases, and networks that support stewardship-oriented instruction and leave ready to design their own classroom-to-community project.

TAKEAWAYS:
Experience how classroom science can lead to real-world impact! Leave with free resources, data tools, and networks that support stewardship-based teaching—and the inspiration to design your own classroom-to-community project. Find out how to get $5000 toward your project.

SPEAKERS:
Liz Martinez, Peggy Steffen

Lots of things are made of plastic in our world. One of the unintended consequences is plastic waste and in particular microplastics, which are found in every environment. In this interactive workshop, you’ll step into your students’ shoes as we explore microplastics using a 5E teaching model that integrates science, math, and ELA strategies. Using Algalita’s standards-aligned classroom toolkits, you'll engage in hands-on investigations to identify microplastics, uncover where they’re found, and connect these to actionable solutions students can take in their own lives to address one of the most pressing environmental challenges of our time. Standards addressed include: Human Impact, Synthetic Materials, Water Pollution, Physical and Environmental Science. We’ll end with discussions of classroom extensions such as action guides, lesson plans, mini-grants, etc. Algalita is an environmental education nonprofit specializing in plastic pollution research and education.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn about microplastics and how to use this as a science lesson to engage students in a relevant, timely science topic and think about solutions. This session will also show teachers ways that they can use science to build ELA and Math connections in 3-5 and 6-8 classrooms.

SPEAKERS:
Emily Wanous, Virginia (Gini) Oberholzer Vandergon

Multilingual learners often need targeted language support in the moment—without interrupting sensemaking or lowering cognitive demand. In this session, participants will explore just-in-time instructional strategies that support multilingual learners during science discussions, investigations, and explanation-building. Attendees will analyze classroom video to identify teacher moves that provide timely language scaffolds while keeping students engaged in authentic science and engineering practices. Participants will leave with concrete strategies they can immediately apply to support student talk, writing, and reasoning in science classrooms.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn how to use just-in-time language scaffolds to support multilingual learners’ talk, writing, and reasoning while maintaining high cognitive demand and authentic science sensemaking.

SPEAKERS:
Elizabeth Pawlowski, Ji Sun Ham, Zoe Evans

Participants will explore our project designed to engage elementary and high school students in STEM by fostering curiosity and a lasting love of science. Under the guidance of high school science staff, older students mentor elementary peers through hands-on, inquiry-based activities. Our initiatives include large-scale DISCOVER Day (~1500 participants), school-based mentoring, All Abilities STEM afternoon, and week-long Summer Camps. Elementary students plan and conduct experiments, use computational thinking with MicroBits to explore physical computing, and investigate natural phenomena in biology, chemistry, and physics. High school students, in turn, share their passion while serving as exemplars and leaders. The presentation will showcase activities, make-and-takes, and demonstrations from STEM and DISCOVER days while outlining the steps needed for implementation and discussing results demonstrating how this model challenges students to think about STEM beyond their classroom.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will leave with a practical model for connecting older and younger students through engaging community-based STEM activities that build confidence, spark curiosity, and inspire lasting interest in science beyond the classroom.

SPEAKERS:
Becky Mortland, Jeremy Tomaszewski

In this era of science denial K-12 teachers have an opportunity to provide appropriate responses in their programs. This session introduces understandable and achievable responses with clear connections to NGSS and associated state science standards that use the 5E instructional model. This session will include both a short presentation and a brief activity. The activities in this session are contained in a new co-publication by Corwin and NSTA presses.

TAKEAWAYS:
In this era many science teachers have concerns about science denial but express doubts about what they can do. This session's main takeaway is a response to the stated concern--teach students about the nature of science as included in NGSS.

SPEAKERS:
Rodger Bybee

Playing STEM: Through free choice hands-on play in earliest years learners acquire basic Holistic STEM (STEM-E) skills and explore object and loose parts in a sequence, the cross cutting basic skills and foundational experiences are encountered laying a foundation for Parental and practitioner interactions within their culture and the everyday in their community n developing the instinctive learning of these youngest of learners before preschool and formal curricula. Observations were made particularly in England, Nigeria , Bangladesh and the Caribbean that contributed to recognition of STEM E and Holistic STEM , a basic for formal learning and teaching.

TAKEAWAYS:
Identify the intuitive basic STEM in action in the youngest (non verbal) children's free choice hands-on play through interactions with toys, everyday objects Be able to recognises the the PLAY STEM CYCLE and developmental progression as the child gradually masters the complete sequence.

SPEAKERS:
Sue Dale Tunnicliffe

Attendees will participate in a national science and social studies aligned lesson created by the City of Lexington, Kentucky’s environmental education team. They will analyze maps, satellite imagery, and other data to compare and contrast green space, alternative transportation, and sanitary sewers in three cities across the U.S. They will then determine if the practices in each city are considered sustainable using a shared definition. The lesson allows for individual or group work depending on students’ needs and incorporates various learning modalities to support multilingual learners. Educators will learn about resources for locating similar data on their community and gain access to a template for presenting the data to students and the accompanying worksheet. This lesson can be part of a 4-lesson unit that delves further into sustainable urban planning topics. Student and teacher experiences participating in this lesson will be shared along with data from the unit assessment.

TAKEAWAYS:
What makes a city sustainable? Participants will answer this question by evaluating data from three communities. Educators will learn how to adapt the lesson to include sustainability data on their city to promote place-based learning and how the introductory lesson can fit into a 4-lesson unit.

SPEAKERS:
Sagan Goodpaster

Inspired by InSECT, we propose courses that include both science and humanities. Elizabeth Zodda has five years of experience teaching an interdisciplinary course that blends science and social studies and includes students who may not see themselves as science students. In this session you will see how such a course was developed and how it runs. As students investigate current or historical issues that make use of scientific knowledge, we analyze the differences between science and other disciplines such as literature or political science. How do they compare in their approach to knowledge production, interpretation, and communication? Through this unusual classroom experience, students develop an appreciation for science and its role in providing trustworthy and reliable knowledge about the world and come to understand the arts and humanities. Stand-alone lesson suggestions will be included for use in your own classroom to enhance your science students’ connection to current events.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will leave with a better understanding of how science and other subjects differ in terms of building up, evaluating and using knowledge. You will be introduced to interdisciplinary methods for discussing the nature of science with your students.

SPEAKERS:
Elizabeth Zodda

Participants will use live data & R programming (free, open access, non-commercial software for graphing & calculations) to predict eruption frequencies of Old Faithful geyser (NGSS Standards HS-ESS2-3 & HS-ESS2-6; Developing & Using Models & HS-ESS2-2; Analyzing & Interpreting Data). R is easy to learn & aids in visualizing data collected in the science classroom, as well as the integration of science-across-math efforts. This lesson supports a wide range of learners (demonstrated by 10 years teaching science in both brick/mortar Title 1 & on-line schools, raising science test scores above the state average) including multilingual, neurodiverse, students with disabilities & students who face barriers to access or engagement in science learning (e.g. multilingual students of migrant workers who attend school on-line) & is grounded in Science/STEM for all. Participants are advised to bring a laptop with R pre-installed (https://www.r-project.org/ has versions for all operating systems).

TAKEAWAYS:
Discover what a useful tool R programming can be for visualizing & managing live data in the classroom, from graphing to performing calculations, enhancing the integration of science-across-math. Participants will be able to teach their students to use R for data visualization & analysis.

SPEAKERS:
Lisa Washburn, Brian Dennis

Following the California 3-Course Integrated Model AND the NGSS Modified Science Domains High School Curricular Model, this storyline for the formation and history of the La Brea tar pits provides an excellent opportunity for place-based sensemaking of a local phenomenon that integrates Earth Science with Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. The storylines involves the development of Los Angeles as a sedimentary basin starting 28 million years ago, when the birth of the San Andreas fault tore off and rotated the Transverse Mountains; the development of petroleum in the rock beneath LA; the percolation of petroleum to the surface starting at least 55,000 years ago after the 6th-street fault cut across the sub-LA Puente rock formation; and the evolution and extinction of large mammals like the ground sloths, mastodons, and smilodons with changing climates and the arrival of humans in Southern California. Students can visit the site and see the ongoing excavations as a capstone experience.

TAKEAWAYS:
The La Brea tar pits provides teachers with a way to engage students with a local place-based storyline that helps in their sensemaking for integrating LA’s history in geophysics (earthquakes), geochemistry (petroleum production), geobiology (large mammal evolution), and climate change.

SPEAKERS:
Michael Wysession

As borderlands educators, we support Mexican American students by differentiating processes, assessments, and classroom culture to navigate language/ cultural dynamics in NGSS-based, inquiry-driven lessons. In break-out groups, we: 1. explore strategies for communication, such as vocabulary charts, sentence starters, data visualization, to support science and engineering practices; 2. illustrate formative (storytelling, drawings, surveys) and summative assessments (one-page infographics, interviews) that provide multiple ways to elicit student thinking; 3. link investigations into students’ cultural and community knowledge through daily experiences with food, weather, biodiversity, and environmental issues; and 4. foster equitable participation in groups shaped by gender/ cultural dynamics, such as machismo. Finally, we showcase a 5th-grade ice cream inquiry lesson tied to NGSS outcomes with these strategies and invite you to brainstorm ways to apply them in your classroom!

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will apply differentiated strategies across processes, assessments, and classroom culture to support Mexican American students in NGSS-aligned lessons, such as an ice cream activity with 5-PS1-3 and its related 3D learning outcomes to observe and compare material properties.

SPEAKERS:
Leanne Trevino, Jahdaly Rios, Karla Quintanilla Garza, Gustavo Perez, Andrew Kipp, Cecilia Marin, Samuel Rivera, Gabriela Ristaino

There are often missed opportunities for teachers to foster creativity in the science classroom. Our session focuses on how we can develop creative thinking through the process of exploring pendulum motion. Together, we experience a learning sequence of how we can help students to think more divergently in problem solving versus convergently in the science classroom. In the session, we introduce the topic of scientific creativity and connect it to research literature. Additionally, we share a recent exploration of teachers’ ideas about creativity and link to a set of tested assessments that can be used pre/post to measure scientific creativity. An example middle school-level activity will be used to model how we foster divergent thinking in a force and motion activity. SEPs are modeled along with the DCI MS-PS2-5: Conduct an investigation and evaluate the empirical evidence to determine the relationship between the forces and the motion of an object.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will experience hands-on activities associated with the research in scientific creativity and discover practical ways to bring these ideas to their very own classroom. Assessment tools will be used to model a way to deepen learning and spark new insights as part of the activity.

SPEAKERS:
Kristell Yap, Lisa Martin

Learn how local industry can provide pathways to sustainable careers for students through a novel project-based learning Science & CTE course. Gain development insights and resources to empower students with skills for the growing clean energy sector and beyond. See Sprocket for the OER curriculum.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will gain tools to implement this curriculum in their own contexts, as well as an understanding of the development process, enabling them to expand the work into other topics and promote an educational movement that integrates sustainability and career readiness with academic content.

SPEAKERS:
Adrian Baez-Alicea

Discover how teachers, students, and scientists can team up to address local biodiversity challenges through NGSS storylines—sparking student voice, community action, and powerful learning.

TAKEAWAYS:
Collaboration drives student agency and community solutions to real-world biodiversity issues.

SPEAKERS:
Susan Gomez Zwiep, Jill Grace

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) website has a wealth of ocean resources but was previously difficult to search and use. We cataloged the content based on alignment with NGSS and Ocean Literacy Principles as well as topic and type of media and created a searchable database. This “Ocean Learning Hub” is now a searchable database that provides easy and fast access to the content as well as a bookmarking system so you can collate your resources for future reference. We will walk you through this updated website as well as provide an overview and demonstration of one of our available lesson plans developed with a WHOI researcher that explores ocean currents and specifically “underwater waterfalls”, i.e., overflows in the North Atlantic. I will share editable slides that include a quiz, instructions for a hands-on experiment, and two videos. The slides are annotated with teacher notes to help with narration, background information, and conduction of the experiment.

TAKEAWAYS:
Educators will learn how to navigate the new standards based, educator-friendly WHOI Ocean Learning Hub website, gain ocean resources to use in their classroom and for outreach use, and all ages will understand the ocean’s role in our planet’s future.

SPEAKERS:
Grace Simpkins

Our best science learning labs are within easy walking distance and are free and equally accessible to every teacher and student! We start with the sky to illustrate how simple daily observations of changing weather patterns can be combined with easily-accessible images and data from the National Weather Service to demonstrate basic scientific concepts in motion. We will find countless examples of how weather and climate are impacting our water resources, plants and animals, and shaping our landscapes and lives. We will use California’s outdoor laboratories as premier examples of how nature reminds us to use the scientific method to understand the complex natural systems and cycles that are shaping our world and providing us with essential resources for survival. Join earth science professor, author, and naturalist William Selby as he shares discoveries from his California Sky Watcher book and four decades of teaching field classes. Our website: www.rediscoveringthegoldenstate.com .

TAKEAWAYS:
How to more effectively learn from the free outdoor laboratories that are easily accessible to all. Starting with our sky shows, we will share specific scientific concepts and natural science lessons on display every day right outside our windows and doors for grades 6-postsecondary levels.

SPEAKERS:
William Selby

Today’s most urgent challenges—from climate change to food insecurity—are wicked problems that demand new approaches to teaching and learning. This session shares insights from co-design work between Boston University’s Center for STEM Professional Learning at Scale and Relevant Classroom, a Division of Vivayic, focused on developing professional learning experiences that move beyond disciplinary boundaries. Through examples from pathway design and facilitation, participants will explore strategies for creating transdisciplinary, phenomenon-based learning that is adaptable to local contexts while connecting to students’ interests and identities and maintaining coherence. The session highlights design moves that foster systems thinking, teacher and student agency, and equitable participation, as well as lessons learned about scaling professional learning through collaboration and shared ownership.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will experience how convergence-based professional learning equips educators to navigate complex, real-world phenomena and problems and design instruction that connects local relevance with global socio-scientific challenges.

SPEAKERS:
Brian Beierle

Help students connect science learning to the world around them through engaging, hands-on activities that explore ecological connections between people’s land and resource use, climate change, wildlife habitat, and sustainable communities. In this interactive session, participants work collaboratively on systems modeling, simulations and problem-solving challenges that build environmental literacy and inspire students to take informed action. The presented activities emphasize human–environment interactions through crosscutting concepts like cause and effect and stability and change. Attendees will leave with classroom-ready materials that foster curiosity, critical thinking, and environmental literacy, empowering middle school learners to see themselves as problem solvers in a changing world. The presenter will also introduce a tool kit for students to extend their learning to civic engagement and multi-media projects outside of the classroom.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn NGSS-aligned, hands-on activities that build students’ environmental awareness, data skills, and problem-solving abilities while inspiring them to take informed action on real-world sustainability challenges.

SPEAKERS:
Laura Short, Barbara Huth

How can storytelling bridge the gap between science and society by supporting youth to grapple with the complexity of real-world sustainability issues? This session showcases contextual storytelling to create nuanced understanding. We will explore ways youth can tell their own stories to establish personal relevance, gather place-based community stories through participatory action research, and analyze causality through storytelling. Through a combination of hands-on activities and student work examples, participants will learn about visual, oral, and narrative storytelling as a method of transdisciplinary sensemaking in a science classroom. Skills covered will include developing systems, futures, and critical thinking through storytelling. The Smithsonian Science for Global Goals team will share how they leverage storytelling as an engaging tool to develop knowledge of complex global issues and build youth confidence in their ability to take action to create the future they envision.

TAKEAWAYS:
Storytelling is an important tool to understand complexity. When learning about sustainability issues this tool can allow youth to localize global topics, engage in community-based research, explore different perspectives, make sense of the world around them, and express their ideas in an engaging way.

SPEAKERS:
Khadijah Thibodeaux, Erika Bonnett

During this session, participants will explore the deep interconnections between the Standards for Mathematical Practices (SMPs) and the Science & Engineering Practices (SEPs) and how we can leverage those connections to develop truly integrated learning experiences that engage students in real-world problem-solving. Participants will have an opportunity to experience grade level specific interdisciplinary units developed in the state of Georgia that are adaptable to NGSS, Common Core or any state standard alignment. Participants will also learn how to effectively launch these lessons/units, rooted in phenomena, in the STE(A)M classroom, in Problem-Based Learning(PBL) and in cross-disciplinary units that feature content integration, appealing to a variety of learners and levels. Finally, participants will gain tips and strategies for creating their own math/science interdisciplinary units that spark the curiosity and help to connect the dots for our diverse learners.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will leave with strategies/exemplars for integrating math and science seamlessly into their STEM, science or math-based classroom. They will learn how to leverage the Math and Science & Engineering Practices to create powerful interdisciplinary units/lessons that deepen student learning.

SPEAKERS:
Tamara Ross, Marissa Murdock

Discover how to use Project Based Learning to foster a learning environment where students produce original ideas, objects, and structures through STEM.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn how to effectively implement STEM PBL’s (Project Based Learning) by integrating the components of STEM and PBL in order to grow students' capacity for creativity, fun, and back-loaded learning in a STEM context.

SPEAKERS:
Adero Carter

Too many learners see science as something done by others in distant labs. Community science flips this: YOU are the scientist. This session shows how educators transform learners from passive consumers into active contributors who see themselves as part of the scientific community. Discover how to build scientific identity by connecting learners to real research where their observations matter and data creates change. When students contribute to authentic science—documenting biodiversity, analyzing data, tracking patterns—they develop agency and understand science is something they DO. Learn frameworks for facilitating community science that centers learner voice and demonstrates science happens everywhere by everyone. Explore Science Friday's curated resources connecting learners to diverse research topics and settings. Walk away with strategies for building belonging, tools for any learning environment, and an action plan for empowering all learners as scientists.

TAKEAWAYS:
Educators learn to use community science to build scientific identity and agency, transforming learners from passive observers into active scientists who contribute to real research and create change through accessible projects in any setting.

SPEAKERS:
Sandra Roberts

Corporate AI companies invest billions in education, yet most districts miss partnership opportunities by approaching them as customers rather than research collaborators. This hands-on workshop teaches leaders to build mutually beneficial AI partnerships providing sustainable funding, professional development, and cutting-edge tools for equitable STEM programming. Participants engage in live partnership mapping exercises, practice equity-centered pitches with honest company profiles, and develop 90-day action plans. Discover insider strategies that have secured over $ 450 K in partnerships by positioning districts as valuable testing environments for AI innovation. Address current AI implementation challenges while building sustainable funding models that serve all learners, especially multilingual students and those in under-resourced communities.

TAKEAWAYS:
Leaders will master the Partnership Accelerator Process™ for securing sustainable corporate AI partnerships that fund equitable STEM programming by positioning districts as research collaborators, not customers.

SPEAKERS:
Natoshia Anderson

Although genetic engineering and molecular biology have been part of the biology curriculum for decades, the past several years have seen the introduction of new techniques that dramatically alter the landscape of human biology. These now include the possibility of directly modifying the human genome using CRISPR to treat diseases that previously were beyond the reach of medical science. This possibility has now become reality with the cure of an infant suffering from a fatal genetic disorder by CRISPR-mediated genetic editing. We will examine how these powerful techniques work, suggest ways to incorporate them into the curriculum, and explore the promise and peril that awaits the brave new world of human genetic modification. Participants will be engaged in an interactive discussion about current events in biology and share ideas about how to incorporate phenomena in their classrooms. Participants will receive case studies to bring back to share with their students.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will be introduced to high interest case studies/phenomena that will engage their students in biology, demonstrating that biology is both dynamic and relevant to their lives.

SPEAKERS:
Kenneth Miller

Dive into Earth's climate history through the lens of paleoclimatology and proxy data in this hands-on workshop designed for middle and high school STEM educators. Participants will explore evidence of climate change while engaging in authentic explorations of data, engineering design challenges, and strategies for sharing scientific thinking that will easily translate to a variety of classroom settings. We will model oxygen isotope fluctuation, simulate ice core extraction, engineer solutions for core transport, and synthesize data from a wide range of sources to build a compelling case about Earth's past climates and the current rate of climate change. With skills developed in this workshop, educators will help students understand that scientific claims become stronger when supported by multiple lines of evidence, just as no single piece of evidence proves a case in a courtroom, the convergence of many climate indicators provides confidence in our understanding of climate history.

TAKEAWAYS:
Explore how scientists develop an understanding of prehistoric and modern climate change by analyzing proxy data from multiple sources in a hands-on, interactive workshop for middle and high school STEM educators.

SPEAKERS:
Stephen Kos

The Global Ocean Biogeochemical Array (https://www.go-bgc.org/) provides researchers and educators access to over 400 floats that are profiling the water column from 2000 meters to the surface collecting biogeochemical data (pH, oxygen, temperature, nitrate, CO2, fluorescence, Chl, and salinity). Educators also have the option to adopt a float (https://www.go-bgc.org/outreach/adopt-a-float) providing a sense of ownership and pride in the float and the data being gathered. Tutorials and lesson plans are available on the website but this presentation will demonstrate and enable educators to see how easy it is to access the data. Lesson plans are linked with both the Ocean Literacy Principles and the Next Generation Science Standards.

TAKEAWAYS:
Educators will learn how to utilize real data being gathered by scientific instruments around the world. Hands-on investigation will empower educators with the ability to locate and analyze biogeochemical data and correlate it to biological and physical oceanography.

SPEAKERS:
Jennifer Magnusson, George Matsumoto

Lead your team and support students’ career awareness and experience with real-world science applications. Learn how to host a PD session that shares free National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) STEM & career exploration resources using the NIST Educational STEM Resource (NEST-R) registry portal. NEST-R is a bridge into NIST, a federal laboratory focused on measurement science & technology. NIST interdisciplinary work touches many STEM areas, including the Metric System, AI, cybersecurity, the smart electric power grid, chemistry, atomic clocks, nanomaterials, computer chips & earthquake-resistant skyscrapers. Free & publicly available content includes engaging videos, articles, scientist interviews, classroom materials, internships, PD info & more. This workshop is based on four years of experience during the NIST Summer Institute for MS Science Teachers. Facilitators will share lessons learned and tips for delivering this PD.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants receive resources needed to host a 30-60 minute PD session, including support materials, presentation templates, and a user guide. Deliver in live, virtual or hybrid mode. Help your teacher community discover resources to augment curriculum with examples of disciplinary core ideas.

SPEAKERS:
Elizabeth Benham, Joanne Krumel, Cara O'Malley

Bricks can be used as models to represent simple sugars. Students build macromolecules as they link these sugars together. Models may be simple or complex, and complexity can assist students’ understanding of molecular function. The simple sugar, glucose, can form the complex carbohydrate starch, which stores energy, or form the structural carbohydrate, cellulose. Certain polygons can form tessellation patterns and are used to show how simple cellular functions lead to organism complexity. Tessellation patterns may be discussed in Mathematics and Art classes as simple 3- and 4- sided polygons can be transformed into works of art. Students participate in activities and extrapolate chemical and life science concepts using English, too. Engaging in multiple learning styles assists a wide range of student learners. Simple models are terrific tools for addressing science misconceptions like there is only one way to illustrate a concept or idea.

TAKEAWAYS:
Students discuss how 3-D molecular structures affect their chemical properties as they “Act as Enzymes”. The students use geometric shapes to create tessellation patterns (X-cutting concept) and English analogies to explain cellular processes and growth. Students learn in inclusive environments.

SPEAKERS:
Suzanne Cunningham

This interactive workshop highlights The Great Indoors, a free, NGSS-aligned unit for grades 3–5 that blends storytelling, inquiry, and design challenges to turn science learning into real-world action. Students follow Mira, a curious learner investigating the air in her new home, and conduct hands-on experiments to test factors such as ventilation, humidity, and particulates. As they observe, ask questions, and design solutions, they build the competence to apply science in meaningful ways. Students share findings and make plans with their families and extend ideas into their communities. This unit integrates the three dimensions of NGSS, fosters sensemaking through authentic phenomena, and builds student agency. Lessons are modular, adaptable to different schedules, and accessible to all learners. Teachers will participate in sample activities, discuss implementation strategies, and leave with turn-key resources that make science engaging, empowering, and action-oriented.

TAKEAWAYS:
Teachers will discover strategies from a ready-to-use unit that engages students in investigating indoor air quality and empowers them to take meaningful actions - first at home and in class, then in their wider communities.

SPEAKERS:
Chris Link, PhD

Join us for an interactive workshop where we will explore how pairing science activities with literacy strategies builds conceptual understanding using the vocabulary of science. Participants will engage in hands-on activities through five Fail-Safe Thinking Routines: Observe & Wonder, Predict & Infer, Sort & Categorize, Analyze & Interpret, and Conclude & Apply along with interdisciplinary vocabulary practices, including word parts, concept clusters, and word sorting. They will see how explicit vocabulary work helps students use academic language more purposefully in science, describe phenomena accurately and precisely, and deepen understanding of technical terms central to disciplinary knowledge. By connecting literacy strategies with NGSS Science & Engineering Practices, teachers can support diverse learners, automate core skills, and free cognitive space for deeper sense-making. Participants will leave with classroom-tested tools to seamlessly integrate science and literacy.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will gain a toolkit of engaging, classroom-tested science activities, literacy strategies, anchor charts, and assessment tools that support skill development, vocabulary growth and sense-making aligned to the NGSS Science & Engineering Practices.

SPEAKERS:
Lionel Sandner, Sandra Mirabelli

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 then will explore educational approaches, resources, and groups related to these areas. Many free resources that support climate justice education will be shared.

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:
Deb Morrison, Kelsie Fowler, Philip Bell

Why do birds matter? Birds reflect the health of our planet and spark curiosity—especially species like the dazzling birds-of-paradise. This session explores how bird-centered storytelling and participatory science can engage youth, promote interdisciplinary learning, and inspire conservation. Birds are powerful connectors between people and place, helping learners see links between their communities and the wider world. Attendees will explore the fascinating lives of our avian counterparts—from eBird to iNaturalist—to inspire students to observe, ask questions, and take local action. Leave with practical strategies to use birds as a gateway for deeper connections between people, place, and planet.

TAKEAWAYS:
Birds connect people to nature, place, and global ecosystems. Through storytelling and participatory science, educators can engage youth in interdisciplinary learning and conservation action, starting in their own communities and expanding outward.

SPEAKERS:
Lyanne Abreu

Science teachers must create learning environments where ALL students, regardless of their language proficiency and ability, have equal access to meaningful STEM/STEAM curriculum (Lems & Stegemoller, 2019). Session shows how integrating second language acquisition principles and constructivist STEAM content is effective for diverse students (Lee & Stephens, 2020). Presenters focus on Ecosystem lessons based on goals from Arizona Science Standard: LS2C Ecosystems Culturally relevant STEAM curricula and strategies for Latino, Indigenous, and Filipino populations will be demonstrated. Examples focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion via Indigenous Web of Life Curriculum and Hispanic Community Science Projects. Culturally/linguistically diverse STEAM lessons enable teachers to effectively teach Multilingual learners, Neurodiverse learners, and diverse students with disabilities. Takeaways are STEAM lesson examples and activities teachers can immediately use in their classrooms.

TAKEAWAYS:
Teachers experience STEAM strategies and curriculum materials for instruction of Diverse Multilingual Learners, Neurodiverse Learners, and Diverse Students with Disabilities so they can replicate the effective materials and teaching strategies for similar students in their own schools and community.

SPEAKERS:
Gerry Madrazo, Ph.D, Elaine Luzbert, Patricia Peterson

Students’ early success and skills learned in introductory chemistry courses are critical to successful completion of STEM degrees. One way to teach these skills is by targeting students’ social-psychological beliefs through interventions, like growth-mindset (GM) and effective learning strategies (ELS). Two chemistry-based GM and ELS modules were designed and implemented at two institutions. Here, chemistry serves as a model to show how science content can be integrated into discipline-based GM and ELS modules. These strategies are adaptable to other STEM fields, which share common practices and concepts. In this workshop, we will discuss the design, implementation, and findings of GM and ELS interventions aimed at supporting diverse science learners, especially those who may face challenges or need support engaging in science learning. Instructors will learn to tailor interventions to their teaching contexts and receive resources to engage class-wide discussions on GM and ELS.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn how to design and implement science-based growth mindset and effective learning strategies interventions in STEM classes and will be engaged in groups to discuss research findings and collaborate on customizing interventions to their own specific teaching contexts.

SPEAKERS:
Li Ye, Julia Chan

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:
Kelsie Fowler, Philip Bell

Through hands-on investigations and activities developed by NOAA Ocean Exploration, participants will experience how students can think and work like ocean scientists. Educators will engage in lessons that use mapping technology, water column investigations, and underwater robotics to gather and analyze data, revealing the patterns scientists use to locate hydrothermal vents. These classroom-ready experiences show how students, no matter where they live, can explore the ocean and contribute to understanding new habitats and species. The session will also highlight a recent real-world example from researchers and educators at the University of Delaware and collaborators aboard the R/V Atlantis, who captured the first-ever observations of an underwater volcanic eruption in progress.

TAKEAWAYS:
Educators will learn how modern technology helps students explore the ocean from wherever they live. Hands-on investigations model the work ocean scientists and explorers use every day to gather new data and find new habitats and species.

SPEAKERS:
David Christopher, Tami Lunsford

How can a single strand of hair unlock the physics of light? In this interactive STEM session, participants will step into the role of their students as they use a simple laser pointer and everyday materials to measure the thickness of their own hair. Using the principle of light interference, attendees will explore how waves overlap to create patterns that reveal hidden dimensions at the microscopic scale. Adaptable across grade levels, this 45-minute activity seamlessly integrates NGSS and CCSS math standards, helping students connect measurement, graphing, and scientific reasoning. Educators will leave with a ready to use lesson, clear step by step instructions, all materials needed to recreate the demonstration, and strategies for engaging learners in inquiry based science that blends curiosity, math, and the science of light.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn how to engage students in exploring light interference by using a simple laser activity to measure the thickness of hair, connecting real world inquiry to NGSS and math standards through hands-on, inquiry-based STEM learning.

SPEAKERS:
Natalie Woods, Phillip Cook

Step into the role of a student scientist and uncover the hidden world of bats through sound! This hands-on workshop introduces educators to bioacoustics, the study of sound in nature, as a powerful tool for participatory science. Participants will analyze real ultrasonic bat recordings, visualize calls as spectrograms, and interpret how sound data reveal species diversity and ecosystem health. Using free digital tools and open-access datasets, educators will experience how students can collect, analyze, and contribute to authentic biodiversity research. The session models NGSS-aligned practices—asking questions, interpreting data, and constructing evidence-based explanations—while highlighting connections across physics, biology, and environmental science. Participants will leave with classroom-ready materials, citizen science pathways, and strategies to help students become acoustic explorers who connect technology, storytelling, and conservation through the science of sound.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn how to use bioacoustics—the science of sound—to engage students in authentic, data-driven investigations of bat biodiversity, connecting NGSS practices with citizen science and conservation to make science learning locally relevant and engaging.

SPEAKERS:
Claire Lannoye-Hall

Place-based science gives students a sense of purpose as they collect data that contributes to knowledge about their own communities. The experience becomes even more meaningful when students use math and computational thinking to explore their data. In this workshop, co-facilitated by the NSTA Professional Learning team and Tuva, participants will consider how to extend community science experiences by integrating math practices into data exploration.

TAKEAWAYS:
When science teachers tap into what students are learning in math, they build richer science learning and support ongoing growth in math. Participants will review the data skills students are introduced to in the mathematics curriculum at the grade level(s) they teach, and identify ways to draw on t

SPEAKERS:
Jocelyn Foran, Brianna Reilly Oliveira

This poster highlights The Great Indoors, an NGSS-aligned unit for grades 3–5 that blends storytelling, inquiry, and design challenges to help students explore indoor air quality and practice problem-solving. Students follow Mira, a curious learner investigating the air in her new home, and conduct hands-on experiments with variables such as ventilation, humidity, and particulates. They make observations, ask questions, and apply engineering design to create simple solutions that improve the spaces where they live, learn, and play. Developed with university partners, the unit integrates the three dimensions of NGSS, builds action competence, and supports sensemaking through authentic, place-based phenomena. Each lesson is modular, adaptable to different schedules, and accessible to all learners. Teachers will be introduced to lesson designs, experiments, and free resources that make science engaging, inclusive, and relevant to the air we breathe indoors.

TAKEAWAYS:
Teachers will explore a ready-to-use, NGSS-aligned unit where grades 3–5 students investigate indoor air quality through storytelling, inquiry, and hands-on experiments, building sensemaking, action competence, and problem-solving through design thinking and engineering.

SPEAKERS:
Chris Link, PhD

The research was based on a questionnaire administered to 74 high school biology teachers (State or non-religious, n=47, Religious, n=27). The study examined the relationships between sector, tenure, and teacher's role perceptions with their attitudes regarding the teaching of reproduction. Through factor analysis, three constructs with high internal reliability were identified: teacher anxieties, the importance of teaching reproduction, and teacher's perception of student interest in the subject. Significant differences were found as that high school teachers in the religious education system expressed a higher level of anxiety compared to teachers in the state education system. 60% of teachers in the state education system integrate the teaching of contraception, compared to 26% in the religious education system. The results indicate the importance of adapting professional development and teaching materials to the teacher's culture and values.

TAKEAWAYS:
The results indicate the importance of adapting professional development and teaching materials to the teacher's culture and values, while influencing teacher's role perceptions to promote engagement with sensitive socio-scientific issues as teaching reproduction in biology classes in high school.

SPEAKERS:
Amichai Yavlovich

This poster aims to provide insight into how scientists answer biology's most fundamental questions, “Who is there and what are they doing?” The activities shared will encourage learners to explore innovative methods for obtaining this critical information through environmental DNA (eDNA). Through a series of guided inquiries, learners discover how DNA barcoding is applied to ecological studies. As a culminating activity, learners will use Google My Maps to create map layers to display existing species data (expert range maps, participatory science observations, and historic records) and propose locations for eDNA collection for a locally selected species. These activities emphasize the importance of sampling and the value of multiple lines of evidence in allowing scientists to conclude, while acknowledging potential problems that could arise. Visitors to the poster receive all materials and a structured framework to be localized to serve their practice.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will explore how eDNA can be used in conjunction with participatory science and historical surveys to provide multiple layers of evidence, thereby maximizing conservation efforts.

SPEAKERS:
Claire Lannoye-Hall

Are you interested in using data from local phenomena in lessons with your students? In this session, co-facilitated by the NSTA professional learning team and Tuva, participants will have time to find data from local phenomena that can be used in their own classrooms, and will craft data-based lessons within Tuva to help students make sense of their phenomena. This session is a workshop that builds on the previous sessions in the Finding Phenomena Nearby: How to Use Local Data to Drive Student Learning pathway.

TAKEAWAYS:
Tuva provides powerful data visualization tools that make data more accessible and allow the teacher to intentionally scaffold data interactions based on their students’ needs. Participants will have time to find and prepare data from local phenomena to share with their students.

SPEAKERS:
Jocelyn Foran, Brianna Reilly Oliveira

What will be described in this speed sharing session is are community science events that can be organized with themes that use natural phenomena or NGSS standards, practices, and outcomes that a school would like to promote. We will also share how we form these partnerships with local schools and museums.

TAKEAWAYS:
How to update these events to go beyond the traditional Family Science Events that are superficial. One main takeaway are examples of in depth activities and resources that can be used with families and students at local schools and museums. We share information about resources.

SPEAKERS:
Alexandra Chester, Taylor Fockler, Jordan Kobielus, Jim McDonald

Discover the transformative power of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) to elevate STEM learning in your classroom! This session highlights hands-on projects that enhance engagement while building students’ communication, collaboration, problem-solving, spatial reasoning, and critical thinking skills. By integrating UAS career exploration and real-world applications, educators can create meaningful experiences that connect classroom learning to the world around them. Participants will explore diverse drone applications, from environmental science and agriculture to emergency response and infrastructure inspection, showcasing how UAS technology can be used across multiple fields. Students will gain not only technical proficiency but also essential skills for future STEM careers. Join us to explore innovative strategies for incorporating UAS into your curriculum and inspire students to envision themselves in exciting careers in aviation, engineering, and beyond.

TAKEAWAYS:
Explore drone-based STEM projects and leave with ready-to-use lessons, resources, and strategies for your classroom. Gain tools to engage students in problem-solving, teamwork, and career-connected learning in aviation and STEM fields.

SPEAKERS:
Jesse Steiner, Christina Davis

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. We will draw on resources from STEM Teaching Tools (stemteachingtools.org) and Learning in Places (learninginplaces.org) to support these experiences.

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:
Kelsie Fowler, Philip Bell

When we tackle science-based topics like climate change and vaccine hesitancy with our students, we try to counter misconceptions which may have been produced by online disinformation or statements by persons in the news such as politicians. We can often use teacher-sense to tell us something isn’t right but how can we develop this intuition in our students? This is what we aim for in the InSECT course. We propose going beyond simple markers like .edu URLs and instead focusing on the hallmarks of reporting and communicating science that are consistent with the values of science itself. The institution of science is based on scientists’ unrelenting focus on seeking the truth about the natural world and reporting their findings honestly and with integrity. Join us as we use the NGSS Matrix of Connections to the Nature of Science to show how we can help our students to distinguish authoritative science communication from messages that are mistaken or even downright dishonest.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will engage with InSECT, our approaches to learning science, and leave with ways to help students discern whether or not an information source aligns with the values of science, using the NGSS Nature of Science connections.

SPEAKERS:
Elizabeth Zodda

Flap to the Future: The Flight Adaptations Game by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Bird Academy allows students to explore and understand the adaptations birds have evolved that help them fly. The K-12 education team has developed this activity resource to help educators scaffold Flap to the Future for middle school students, grades 6-8. Jump, Glide, or Fly? Exploring Bird Evolution addresses key concepts such as adaptation, anatomy, evolution, and structure and function. As your students enjoy playing Flap to the Future, these activities will help ensure students learn the most from this fun online game. Attendees of this session will be introduced to three separate NGSS aligned activities that are freely available on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology K-12 website.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees of this session will be introduced to three separate NGSS aligned activities, including the learning game Flap to the Future, which investigates topics in the evolutionary pathways from dinosaurs to birds, flight adaptations, and extrapolating on the direction of future bird evolution.

SPEAKERS:
Greg Czekaj

How can teacher leaders expand their influence beyond the classroom? This session introduces Social Network Theory (SNT) as a framework for understanding and strengthening STEM leadership through the principles of centrality, brokerage, and tie strength. Participants will apply these concepts by sketching quick maps of their personal and professional STEM networks and exploring examples from the New Mexico STEM Friends Network. The session demonstrates how mapping networks can reveal strengths and gaps, offering digital tools such as QR-linked Padlet boards for sharing and reflection. Attendees will leave with strategies to expand and activate their networks to strengthen collaboration and build a more connected STEM ecosystem.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will discover how applying Social Network Theory helps teacher leaders map, activate, and expand professional connections—strengthening collaboration, influence, and equity across the STEM ecosystem.

SPEAKERS:
Deena Gould, Laura DeBusk, Valerie Scott, Daniel Delgado

This Speed Sharing session highlights two free, ready-to-use NGSS-aligned units that bring climate and health science into grades 3–8 classrooms through storytelling, experiments, and case studies. In the elementary unit, students follow Mira as she investigates indoor air quality and proposes simple solutions. In the middle school unit, students analyze data and explore how climate-driven events like wildfires, flooding, and pesticide use affect indoor environments and human health. Both units end with a community-focused design challenge. Developed with university partners, the lessons integrate the three dimensions of NGSS, foster sensemaking, and build student action competence. They are modular, adaptable, and accessible to diverse learners. Teachers will leave with ready-to-use resources and strategies that make climate and health science engaging and relevant.

TAKEAWAYS:
Teachers will discover free, ready-to-use, NGSS-aligned units for grades 3–8 that use storytelling, experiments, and case studies to connect climate science, indoor environments, and human health. These units empower students to ask questions, solve problems, and take action.

SPEAKERS:
Chris Link, PhD

Discover how the humble sticky note can transform your science classroom into a hub of curiosity, collaboration, and creativity! In this session, you’ll learn how printing directly on sticky notes opens up endless possibilities for student engagement and sensemaking. From building dynamic driving question boards that spark and sustain inquiry, to designing interactive word walls that evolve with student understanding, sticky notes offer flexible, hands-on ways to make learning visible. Explore strategies for providing personalized feedback, tracking progress with badge systems, organizing class calendars, and more—all with colorful squares of paper that can move, cluster, and adapt to student needs. Walk away with practical ideas, templates, and inspiration to harness the power of sticky notes to empower learners, foster ownership, and make science thinking stick!

TAKEAWAYS:
Unlock the hidden power of sticky notes! Learn how printing on them can transform your science classroom with driving question boards, word walls, feedback, badges, and calendars. Walk away with ready-to-use ideas to boost curiosity, engagement, and student ownership.

SPEAKERS:
Peter Kelly

Come meet the NSTA Director and members of the Research Committee! The NSTA Research Division focuses on the systematic study of how people learn science, including investigations into teaching methods, curriculum design, student understanding of scientific concepts, and factors that influence science learning, with the goal of improving science education practices and student outcomes across various levels of learning. The NSTA Research Committee helps keep members updated on the latest research in science education through quarterly blog posts and NSTA’s Research listserv. Learn how the committee can support you, discover helpful NSTA research-related tools and resources, and connect with other researchers and educators to strengthen connections between research and practice. The committee hopes to learn how we can better serve NSTA members, so feel free to share your ideas with us in this interactive session.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants in this session will meet the NSTA Research Committee and find out how to connect with them in their work to support researchers & educators, expand access to the latest research, and strengthen the connections between research and practice.

SPEAKERS:
Helene McLaughlin, Shannon Smith, Debi Hanuscin

What if students could learn science the way museum professionals design exhibits – through playful prototyping? In this workshop, participants will explore paper prototypes from Discovery Cube, a hands-on science museum in Southern California, then step into the role of exhibit designers themselves. Using paper, cardboard, markers, and tape, educators will build simple prototypes of interactive science exhibits that engage the public in making sense of phenomena. Through this process, teachers will experience how prototyping encourages creativity, iteration, and playful exploration while requiring students to distill NGSS disciplinary core ideas into audience-friendly interactions. Adaptable across grade levels, this low-cost approach supports multilingual learners, neurodiverse students, and others who may face barriers in traditional instruction. Attendees will leave with a classroom-ready strategy that transforms science learning into an engaging and inclusive practice.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn how museum-style prototyping can transform science teaching, showing students how to explore phenomena, test ideas, and communicate understanding through hands-on, iterative, and inclusive design experiences.

SPEAKERS:
Tina Rolewicz, Laura Schmidl

Early science instruction presents a powerful opportunity to foster conceptual understanding and language development; yet, for students from disadvantaged backgrounds and those with language vulnerabilities, these experiences are often limited. This project-based play with the Three Little Pigs employs a 3-dimensional lens, featuring new twists on the classic fairy tale and a project-based scenario that focuses on river flooding, providing cause-and-effect relationships and innovative structural design. Using rubrics, the project connects weather disasters with opportunities for students to test, collect data, analyze, and problem-solve using innovative structural designs that aim to protect homes from flooding rivers. The 60-minute presentation session uses teacher testimony, pictures, and examples, allowing participants to observe the 5E's play-based weather project and how to apply the engineering design process using coaching protocols to ensure science accessibility for all.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn how formative and summative assessment rubrics guided the evaluation of children's critical thinking in areas such as data tables, asking questions, describing typical weather conditions, designing and testing structures, and the causes and effects of a torrential downpour.

SPEAKERS:
Robin McGinnis

More than 10 years after NGSS was rolled out, science curriculum in many contexts remains unaligned and lacks rigorous three-dimensional performance, especially at the high school level. This session will introduce educators to the NSTA matrices of NGSS dimensions, utilizing them to examine activities from different curriculum sources. Educators can apply this process in evaluating, developing, or adjusting curriculum to ensure that it meets the high bar of NGSS in all three dimensions, thus supporting equitable instruction for all students. This session is for anyone who will lead or participate in the evaluation of science curriculum materials, or anyone who wants to ensure their adopted or developed science curriculum aligns with NGSS.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn how to recognize grade-level performance using appendices E-G of the Framework, and will become familiar with common curriculum planning approaches that may lead to misalignment between student performance and grade-level standards.

SPEAKERS:
Liz Beans

What if one question could transform your science classroom? Discover "Cultural Bridges" - a powerful equity strategy that connects students' home experiences to NGSS phenomena through intentional questioning. This fast-paced, interactive session demonstrates how PreK-8 educators can immediately increase engagement for ALL learners, especially those from diverse backgrounds. Through hands-on practice, participants will experience creating Cultural Bridge questions and witness their impact on student thinking. Perfect for busy teachers who want research-backed equity strategies they can use tomorrow. Leave with confidence to honor every student's cultural wealth while maintaining science rigor. Ready to bridge the gap between home and classroom learning?

TAKEAWAYS:
Educators will learn how to create "Cultural Bridges." A technique where one specific question connects students' home experiences to science phenomena to immediately increase engagement and deepen understanding for all learners.

SPEAKERS:
Almitra Berry

Effective climate education is more than teaching environmental science – it is about transdisciplinary learning that is coupled with meaningful, real-world climate action. Join us as we share recently-launched tools that support this vision! This session will (1) introduce Action-Oriented Pedagogies (AOP; Weinberg et al., 2024), which position students to contribute to culturally- and locally-relevant climate solutions using content knowledge and science and engineering skills; (2) navigate a website created by the Empowering Youth Climate Action research team, which can be leveraged to make climate topics and data more accessible to teachers and students; and (3) explore examples from real classrooms featuring the use of AOP and digital climate learning resources. In a time of prevalent climate denial and misinformation, effective climate education is critical. Attend this session and come away with tangible resources and insights for supporting climate action in your classroom!

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will be introduced to Action-Oriented Pedagogies and gain access to recently-launched digital resources that support the bridging of students’ academic learning and skills development with real-world climate action to bring about more just and sustainable futures.

SPEAKERS:
Michelle Jordan, Brianne Loya, Sarah Suloff

Science and engineering practices offer a clear framework for exploring phenomena and designing solutions, and we briefly highlight our strategies to include our Mexican American students in these investigations. We discuss: 1. supporting student communication through sentence starters, word banks, and vocabulary charts for asking questions and defining problems; 2. using 2D top-down and side drawings to develop and use models; 3. creating concept maps to organize investigations; 4. visualizing data through surveys with bar, line, and pie graphs to analyze results; 5. sharing findings through storytelling, product demonstrations, and peer presentations; and 6. navigating cultural and gender dynamics to foster productive roles in group work. During the Q&A, we invite our audience to share their strategies and supports for Mexican American students, and we share our resources and examples with our audience to help them apply these strategies in their own classrooms.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will explore strategies to develop activities that enhance equity with science and engineering practices for Mexican American students and integrate these strategies into their classrooms.

SPEAKERS:
Cecilia Marin, Gabriela Ristaino, Karla Quintanilla Garza, Gustavo Perez, Andrew Kipp, Jahdaly Rios, Leanne Trevino, Samuel Rivera

Participants will be introduced to educational approaches to using geoheritage sites in instruction, which promotes the interdisciplinary study of a locations’ scientific, educational, cultural, economic, and aesthetic values. Using NGSS-based resources from the American Geosciences Institute, which were made in partnership with the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Park Service, participants will explore classroom activities, geologic maps, images, and other media that can help tell the story of the geologic and human history of sites around the U.S. in a way that relates to current science standards, as well as standards from other subject areas. Specific geoheritage sites—Cumberland Gap, Kilauea, Mather Gorge, Mount St. Helens, and White Sands—will be used to showcase how the geologic diversity of the U.S. has affected human populations. Educators can then apply what they learn about using a geoheritage-based educational approach to other geologic sites around the world.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn how to access a collection of free resources on geoheritage sites in the U.S. and its territories and will also learn practical strategies designed to introduce geoheritage to middle school students.

SPEAKERS:
Lauren Brase, Lindsay Mossa

Our collaborative team of teachers and researchers describes how we integrated and scaffolded data science throughout a 3-week STEM unit focused on a societal challenge. First, we describe the storyline of the instructional unit, which uncovers disproportionate impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on marginalized communities. Then, we describe how four lesson clusters in the unit integrate real data from the COVID-19 pandemic to uncover injustices through data. In the unit, students (a) interpret and problematize comparisons of raw data, (b) compare proportions of population to proportions of infected people, (c) interpret population-adjusted data to identify disproportionality; and (d) use evidence from data to design solutions for a future health crisis. Finally, we provide suggestions for teaching data science.

TAKEAWAYS:
As students make sense of science-related societal challenges, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, they engage with various representations of data. Attendees will unpack our conceptual approach to scaffolding instruction in data science so that students learn to reason with data.

SPEAKERS:
Stephen Kos, Alison Haas, Abigail Schwenger

The aim of the study was to conduct a systematic review of high impact review studies in STEM education. Systematic review was employed in order to reach this aim. Some inclusion and exclusion criteria were determined by the researchers to select the studies to be included or excluded in this systematic review. The determination of high impact review articles in STEM education was carried out in stages. As a result, 18 review articles were included in this systematic review. The articles were analyzed in terms of their number of authors, countries where the authors are located, publication year, number of studies reviewed, name of journal, SSCI status and topic. In order to ensure the reliability of the study, each article was analyzed by each researcher. The result of the study indicated that the vast majority of the journals in which high impact review articles related to STEM are published are well-established, respected, and have a long publication history.

TAKEAWAYS:
Examining these publications through systematic review and presenting their results will contribute to researchers interested in different disciplines such as science education, engineering education, teacher education and especially STEM education. Also, this study would be of interest to NSTA members.

SPEAKERS:
Yurdagul Bogar

The number of newly hired science teachers (NHSTs) is rising in US schools. This increase is often a result of many early career science teachers leaving the teaching profession because they do not feel adequately supported in their school/district. In this interactive workshop, we will engage in sensemaking with three sets of data that focus on NHSTs learning. The data will focus on (1) how NHSTs support their learning in school systems, (2) how NHSTs acquire instructional resources in a school (who provides the materials?), and (3) how out-of-field NHSTs are supported to cultivate their instructional knowledge and practices. After looking at each set of data, the group will discuss their interpretations and generate actionable steps that can be taken in a school/district. The goals of this workshop are to (1) develop empirically-based recommendations about supporting NHSTs, (2) be more aware of the simple steps that can support NHSTs, and (3) make research-to-practice connections.

TAKEAWAYS:
It matters how all NHSTs are supported in their schools. Among other areas, working in professional learning communities that discuss how to teach specific science lessons and guiding new teachers towards important professional learning opportunities are proactive ways colleagues can retain NHSTs.

SPEAKERS:
Julie Luft

Experience how to take phenomenon-based teaching to the next level by strengthening student-driven sensemaking. Using a practical reflection tool and real-classroom examples, participants will explore four dimensions that “power up” instruction: anchoring learning in rich, meaningful phenomena; building coherence through student questions; driving learning with evidence-gathering and revision; and fostering inclusive classrooms where all students reason together. Teachers will identify where their current practice shines and where small, high-leverage moves can create deeper engagement and understanding. You'll get a look at a free, growing library of short, on-demand videos, tools, and ready-to-use strategies designed to support these transitions. Whether you're exploring new practices or looking for concrete tools and planning strategies, you’ll leave with practical ideas and access to high-quality, open instructional materials that can support your journey.

TAKEAWAYS:
Small, intentional moves can “power up” phenomenon-based, student-centered instruction—helping students drive the learning, use evidence to explain the world, and engage in inclusive sensemaking that deepens understanding.

SPEAKERS:
Renee Affolter

Early, career-connected STEM experiences can spark curiosity, shape identity, and open doors to future opportunities especially for students from historically marginalized groups. In this session, we’ll explore how integrating real-world STEM careers into elementary instruction builds foundational skills, fosters persistence, and strengthens the STEM pipeline from childhood through adulthood. Drawing from current research on STEM identity and equity, participants will examine practical strategies, adaptable classroom activities, and tools to help students see themselves as future scientists, engineers, and innovators. We’ll also discuss how career-linked learning supports NGSS practices and 21st-century skills, and how intentional, early exposure can increase enrollment in STEM courses and diversify the future workforce. Attendees will leave with actionable ideas to inspire and sustain STEM engagement in every learner.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn how to integrate career connected STEM experiences into elementary instruction to build STEM identity, foster persistence, and inspire all students, especially those from underrepresented groups, to pursue future STEM pathways.

SPEAKERS:
Dr. Kara Ball

This session showcases how a rural New Mexico district reimagined its high school STEM internship program to expand equity, affirm cultural identity, and strengthen local career pathways. Through community partnerships, dual language programming, and student voice surveys, every 11th–12th grader now participates in a paid, real-world internship while younger students engage in exploratory placements that build confidence and career readiness. Students gain experience in robotics, agriculture, emergency medicine, and coding while celebrating linguistic and cultural heritage through senior capstones. Participants will explore replicable strategies that link STEM learning with community identity, including financial literacy supports, university partnerships, and family engagement structures that led to improved graduation outcomes and workforce readiness.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will discover how community partnerships, student voice, and culturally relevant design can create equitable, career-connected STEM pathways that honor identity, expand opportunity, and prepare students for future success.

SPEAKERS:
Deena Gould, Daniel Delgado

Participants will take part in a Meaningful Watershed Educational Experience co-created by university educators, Piscataway citizens, classroom teachers, informal educators, and NOAA. This collaborative curriculum weaves Indigenous knowledge systems with Western science, modeling inclusive, place-based approaches to K–12 science education. Guided by the principle of Two-Eyed Seeing (Marshall, 2004), viewing the strengths of Indigenous knowledge and Western science, the framework highlights the importance of representation and local environmental phenomena in learning. Through hands-on activities, participants will examine how ecocentric relationships with the natural world can foster conservation, sustainability, and stewardship. Centered on keystone species of the Chesapeake Bay, and especially the diamondback terrapin, the unit invites learners to connect ecology, culture, and care for future generations while advancing the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will explore an inquiry-based environmental science curriculum on the Chesapeake Watershed and Diamondback Terrapins. They will leave the session with a usable pluralistic framework that integrates Indigenous knowledge with Western science to enrich science learning.

SPEAKERS:
Angela Stoltz

In today’s classrooms, educators are navigating more than lesson plans and labs- their work and well-being is impacted by headlines, legislation, and public narratives that directly influence what and how they teach. This Speed Share explores insights from current research on how media, policy, and law intersect to impact educators’ professional decision-making, confidence, and autonomy, with a focus on science education. Drawing from dissertation findings, this session will highlight real examples of how teachers interpret and respond to external pressures, from state-level mandates to national media debates about education. Attendees will reflect on how these forces shape classroom culture and student learning, and discuss strategies for maintaining academic integrity, supporting inquiry, and fostering inclusive, evidence-based instruction amid changing political climates.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will leave with a concise digital resource (via QR code) summarizing key findings and offering reflection questions for professional learning communities or department discussions.

SPEAKERS:
Cassie Herndon

What is safety science, and why does it matter for today’s classrooms? This speed session introduces the Institute for Research Experiences & Education at UL Research Institutes, a nonprofit research organization advancing safety science in areas such as fire, batteries, and sustainability. We will share how our team translates cutting-edge research into free, classroom-ready STEM resources designed for teachers and other educators. Attendees will see how safety science connects to NGSS practices, how to access and use our resources, and why our nonprofit mission ensures these tools remain free and accessible. The session will also highlight pathways for educators to partner with ULRI to bring authentic, real-world safety challenges into science teaching and learning.

TAKEAWAYS:
Discover what safety science is, why it matters, and how UL Research Institutes offers free, research-based STEM resources that connect classroom learning to real-world challenges in safety and sustainability.

SPEAKERS:
Jessica Sparacino, Daniel Sternberg

Hands-on science activities can present challenges for some students, and many teachers have limited training to support a range of learning needs. Through the GLOBE Weather Pathways project, we created a professional learning community for middle school educators to apply Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles and explore ways to support all learners. Educators collaborated with science and special education experts to adapt lessons, heard from STEM professionals with disabilities, and used simulators to experience classroom activities from different perspectives—all within a middle school weather curriculum. This session will share lesson adaptations, key takeaways, and strategies for helping all students see themselves in STEM career pathways. Participants will take part in hands-on science activities using simulators to better understand challenges students may face and hear from a project teacher who will share practical tips and strategies through a UDL lens.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn how to adapt science activities using Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles to better engage all students. The session features teacher-tested strategies and a hands-on simulator experience to explore barriers to student engagement in science.

SPEAKERS:
Kirsten Johnson Nesbitt, Rachana Bhonsle, Melissa Rummel

Finding relevance in real-world scientific events increases students’ motivation for learning. Elementary schools have neglected to include science as a main part of the curriculum hindering students’ development of critical thinking and argumentation-building skills. This session introduces storytelling to enhance science understanding. As a scaffold, Rosita the pink dolphin, helps students purposefully evaluate connections between lines of evidence and alternative explanations of human impact to the environment. The story promotes content integration between science and English Language Arts to further scientific literacy among children. As a collaborative effort, preservice candidates will create the art and a second storybook-like scaffold focusing on mitigating actions to promote awareness of anthropogenic damage. In its initial phase, this project is a modified version of the model-evidence-link (MEL) resources on middle grades and high school Earth and Enviromental science.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn how elementary pre-service teacher students interpret and extend model-evidence-link (MEL) relationships within a story about mitigating actions to promote awareness of anthropogenic damage. Their work samples should incite discussion about elementary MEL interpretations.

SPEAKERS:
Omah Williams-Duncan, Lorraine Ramirez Villarin

Join us for an interactive workshop where you’ll experience dynamic, student-centered teaching aligned with the latest science and ELA standards. Learn how to integrate literacy practices, such as reading, writing, and speaking, into your science instruction to create a rich, 3D learning experience. Participate in a hands-on science investigation about an Elk reintroduction project in Virginia, engaging with complex scientific ideas while strengthening literacy skills. Through small-group activities, discover strategies to support students' sense-making and deepen their thinking. Walk away with practical tools to: • Integrate literacy into science lessons for cross-disciplinary learning • Foster collaboration through reading, writing, and speaking activities • Use real-world phenomena to deepen student engagement • Provide timely support to challenge all learners Transform your science instruction and inspire your students with engaging, hands-on experiences!

TAKEAWAYS:
Student sense-making and development of important literacy skills are enhanced when a learning experience requires students to read, write, talk, and listen with the goal of obtaining and communicating new information and evaluating what they figured out.

SPEAKERS:
Victor Sampson

How does computer science integration deepen students’ use of engineering design to solve problems related to early warning systems for natural hazards? Discover what is different in a free, upcoming OpenSciEd 6th-grade middle school science + computer science unit on Natural Hazards. Students investigate the causes and solutions related to one natural hazard - Tsunamis and they use this case study to develop ideas for how to detect, warn, and protect people from other natural hazards over the course of the unit. Hear how students engage with micro:bit devices and sensors to collect and analyze data related to earthquakes and Tsunamis, which supports the development of related Physical Science and Earth and Space Science disciplinary core ideas. See examples of how students reprogram their micro:bits to produce different outputs depending on the thresholds and ranges of inputs that are detected from multiple sensors.

TAKEAWAYS:
Students’ investigations into measuring and responding to changes occurring in Earth systems when a natural hazard occurs are enhanced through the use of computing devices, which also allow for the development of computer science and engineering ideas embedded throughout the unit.

SPEAKERS:
Michael Novak, Nicole Vick, Dan Voss

Many students are quite concerned about climate change, but surveys show that most do not know what actions they can take. Come explore ways to engage students in community centered collaborative climate action now and on into the future. This workshop will engage participants in frank conversations about avoiding indoctrination, designing for varied forms of action, and building community collaborations.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will gain skills in how to weave different forms of climate action into their current learning resources as well as design new lessons that center locally contextualized and appropriate collective action efforts; such work can be framed for the goals of any educational environment.

SPEAKERS:
Deb Morrison, Sarah Sterling

NGSS and Science of Reading (SoR) frameworks have common principles that can be linked to support deeper learning in both science and literacy instruction. By aligning practices from the Science of Reading with NGSS's emphasis on inquiry, evidence-based reasoning, and cross-disciplinary thinking, you can create a more integrated approach to teaching both literacy and science. These connections promote stronger comprehension, critical thinking, and the ability to transfer skills across subjects. We will explore connections between the frameworks and include practical strategies for integrating literacy and science instruction in K-5 classrooms, empowering educators to bridge these essential skills. Participants will learn how vocabulary development, reading comprehension, and text structure awareness support key NGSS practices and how critical thinking in reading supports students in making sense of crosscutting concepts in science.

TAKEAWAYS:
Discover how aligning NGSS with the Science of Reading strengthens comprehension, critical thinking, and cross-disciplinary learning. Participants will leave with practical strategies to integrate literacy and science instruction in K–5 classrooms.

SPEAKERS:
Beth Pesnell

What makes a makerspace more than just a room full of tools? This session draws on new research with makerspace educators to explore the goals, purposes, and teaching practices that shape makerspace learning environments across K–16 classrooms. By centering the voices of educators, this study explores how intentional design of makerspaces can foster equity, inclusion, and engagement for historically underrepresented groups in STEM, including girls, women, and individuals who identify as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. We’ll unpack themes from the study and highlight what works, what challenges remain, and what purposeful implementation of maker education can look like. Whether you are just getting started or looking to deepen your understanding of maker education, this session will equip you with insights and resources to help you design a makerspace.

TAKEAWAYS:
Learn about the goals, purpose, teaching practices, and implementation of makerspace learning environments across K-16 classrooms based off of recent data from makerspace educators. Walkaway with a toolkit to help you launch a makerspace and engage your learners in maker education.

SPEAKERS:
Olivia Bello

This workshop invites educators to explore how beginning teachers develop their instructional visions and the ways these visions shape their responsive teaching beliefs and practices. Drawing on qualitative research, the session highlights the multifaceted influences—formal coursework, field placements, prior schooling, informal teaching, research opportunities, and reflective practices—that impact beginning teachers' beliefs about teaching and learning. Participants will engage in engaging activities that explore responsive teaching practices, examine how beginning teachers' experiences shape their instructional visions, and reflect on their own instructional visions and professional pathways. By foregrounding the dynamic interplay between teacher education and broader lived experiences, this workshop equips educators and teacher educators with strategies to better recognize, leverage, and intentionally support the diverse influences that shape teachers’ instructional visions.

TAKEAWAYS:
Gain a deeper understanding of how instructional visions are constructed and reshaped by multiple, overlapping experiences, beyond formal education. Reform-oriented practices are promoted by leveraging diverse experiences and fostering reflection, especially with beginning teachers.

SPEAKERS:
Nessrine Machaka