This energetic Lesson Showcase reveals how robotics competitions drive NGSS-aligned science learning through authentic student challenges. During the 60-minute share-a-thon, attendees will explore a complete robotics competition lesson cycle: pre-competition hooks that spark curiosity and build foundational skills, the featured robotics competition lesson where students engage in engineering design, data analysis, teamwork, iteration, and sensemaking during actual competition prep and events, and post-competition extensions that sustain teams, reflect on learning, and connect to classroom instruction. The poster shares take-home resources, equitable strategies that broaden access, and practical tools for building durable skills like problem-solving and collaboration.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will leave with practical resources and strategies for robotics competitions that support three-dimensional science learning and sustainable student teams.

SPEAKERS:
Dana Lupton

What happens when 5th graders think like real scientists and engineers? In this interactive poster session, explore a high-energy engineering design lesson that gets students asking questions, solving problems, and making sense of the world around them. You’ll see exactly how the lesson unfolds from sparking curiosity at the start, to hands-on investigation, to meaningful reflection and extension. Walk away with ready-to-use resources, student examples, and simple strategies you can bring straight into your classroom. If you’re looking for ways to boost engagement, deepen thinking, and make science come alive for your students, this session is for you.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will leave with a complete, ready-to-implement 5th-grade science/STEM lesson, along with practical strategies to increase student engagement through inquiry. Attendees will walk away with clear, actionable approaches for aligning science instruction to standards.

SPEAKERS:
Samantha Henery

This action research project looks at how hands-on, constructionist learning can support student sensemaking in a high school biology classroom, especially during a genetics and DNA unit. Instead of focusing on memorization, students engaged in projects where they designed and created models to explain complex ideas, connecting their work to real-world phenomena. Throughout the unit, I intentionally assigned projects that gave students the opportunity to construct their own understanding by building, testing, and revising their ideas. Rather than just measuring how much content students remembered, this study focuses on how students made sense of the material. Student-created artifacts, reflections, and discussions were used to see how their understanding developed over time. Overall, this approach highlights how giving students opportunities to design and create can lead to deeper understanding, increased engagement, and more meaningful learning in biology.

TAKEAWAYS:
Biology teachers will gain practical strategies for using constructionist, project-based learning within their DNA/Genetics unit to move beyond memorization and support student sensemaking through designing, building, and revising artifacts.

SPEAKERS:
Brooke Stewart

Bring STEM to life without breaking your budget! In this hands-on session, educators will learn how to guide students in designing, building, and testing balloon-powered cars using recycled and everyday materials. Participants will explore key science concepts such as force, motion, friction, and air resistance while engaging in an engineering design challenge that promotes creativity and problem-solving. Walk away with ready-to-use strategies, classroom management tips, and ideas for differentiating instruction for diverse learners. Perfect for elementary and middle school teachers, this session shows how “trash” can be transformed into high-impact learning that supports standards and excites students.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn how to design and facilitate a low-cost, standards-aligned STEM challenge where students build and test balloon-powered cars from recycled materials to explore force, motion, and engineering design.

SPEAKERS:
Daniell Cossey

The EDP or Engineering Design Process is not just for older students! Any teacher of any class can teach using the EDP as a framework. This interactive poster session will prove it. The poster will allow participants to choose a "lesson" that has been divided into sections and actively connect the sections to the parts of the EDP. This will facilitate valuable conversation and aspects of fun! Blank handouts of the EDP will be available for takeaways in order for partipants to engage themselves in creating their own lesson using the EDP. It's not just simple, it's Elementary!

TAKEAWAYS:
The main takeaway is the Engineering Design Process, and its parts. The poster will feature an interactive portion where participants can choose a "lesson" that has been divided into sections and actively connect the sections to the parts of the EDP aiding valuable conversation and aspects of fun!

SPEAKERS:
Brittany Clark

How can robotics competitions spark deeper science learning? This speed sharing session shows how competition-based experiences can build integrated learning and durable skills in science classrooms. Attendees will explore practical strategies for using robotics competitions to strengthen teamwork, communication, problem-solving, and persistence while connecting science, engineering, and other disciplines. Designed as a fast-paced, high-value session, this presentation offers an adaptable idea participants can use immediately to engage students in authentic challenges and support real-world skill development.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn how robotics competitions can build integrated learning and durable skills by strengthening teamwork, communication, problem-solving, and persistence across science and engineering experiences.

SPEAKERS:
Dana Lupton

Take your students’ learning to new heights in this interactive workshop designed to help you plan and launch a school-wide Project-Based Learning (PBL) experience that’s truly out of this world! Participants will actively explore how our middle school implemented a collaborative, hands-on rocketry project that engaged every student and teacher across grades 7 and 8. In this workshop, you will experience and design elements of five major challenges: stomp rockets, model rockets, horizontal rockets, parachute design, and egg-safe landing. You’ll work through key components of the planning process, including organizing student groups, facilitating design thinking, and structuring trial tests and final launch events. Walk away with practical strategies, planning tools, and adaptable resources to implement a large-scale PBL experience in your own school. Be ready to collaborate, create, and launch ideas you can take back to your classroom immediately!

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn a practical, scalable strategy for organizing a school-wide PBL experience that engages all students and staff through structured team roles, STEM-based challenges, and efficient implementation.

SPEAKERS:
JoElla Hauselman, Abbi Richcreek

This session presents a secure, fully offline AI system for K-12 science classrooms that supports assignment generation, auto-grading, and real-time AI tutoring. Aligned with the AI and Data education strand and the NRC Framework for K-12 Science Education, the tool demonstrates how instructional design and feedback can support NGSS three-dimensional learning, including Science and Engineering Practices such as analyzing and interpreting data and constructing evidence-based explanations. Participants will explore classroom-ready workflows showing how assignments are created, how student work is evaluated using consistent rubrics, and how tutoring responses adapt to learner input using performance data. The system enables continuous instructional feedback loops grounded in student work. Designed for privacy-sensitive and low-bandwidth environments, the platform operates entirely offline to ensure equitable access while reducing teacher workload and improving feedback consistency.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn an offline AI workflow for K-12 science education that supports NGSS-aligned instruction through assignment generation, auto-grading, and adaptive tutoring, enabling data-informed feedback, reduced teacher workload, and equitable implementation.

SPEAKERS:
Nitindra Chowdary Pavuluri

How do we transform standard instructional materials into powerful showcases of three-dimensional learning without increasing teacher workload? This workshop aligns with the Three-Dimensional Teaching, Curriculum, and Assessment strand, demonstrating how to adapt OpenSciEd and ClassCrunchLabs units into authentic transfer tasks. Participants step into the student hat to experience a mini design challenge modeled after Shark Tank and ExploraVision formats. We connect to NGSS goals like MS-PS2 magnetic fields and engineering design. To ensure Science for All, we provide multiple equity examples, including accessible scaffolding templates for diverse learners and inclusive team structures. Shifting to the teacher hat, participants will analyze student-facing pitch templates and use a provided crosswalk tool. You will map these formative and summative assessment strategies directly to your local Portrait of a Graduate competencies, leaving with classroom-ready diagnostic rubrics.

TAKEAWAYS:
Stop rewriting curriculum from scratch. Transform OpenSciEd or ClassCrunchLabs units into thrilling Shark Tank or ExploraVision style transfer tasks. Gain inclusive strategies to make three-dimensional thinking visible and incorporate your school's Portrait of a Graduate durable skills.

SPEAKERS:
Kathleen Boucher-Lavigne

Generative AI makes it easier for students to produce polished science responses without necessarily showing deep understanding. This session presents a research-informed approach for using conceptual modeling to make student thinking visible by revealing how learners represent components, relationships, processes, and change. Drawing on empirical work with undergraduate engineering students and broader research on systems thinking and modeling, the session shows how conceptual representations can expose gaps that fluent written answers may hide. Rather than using AI mainly to generate content, the session explores how AI-informed prompts can support questioning, reflection, revision, and formative assessment. Attendees will leave with practical ideas for prompts, feedback, and assessment that can be adapted for science settings in secondary, postsecondary, and teacher education.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn how conceptual modeling and AI-informed prompts can help reveal and support real student understanding, not just polished AI-assisted answers.

SPEAKERS:
Roee Peretz

Experience how leveraging complex culturally relevant societal challenges as phenomena in 3D teaching and learning supports student motivation and engagement and develops student agency within and beyond the classroom! The Framework for K-12 Science Education and NGSS call for learning grounded in real world phenomena and problems to ensure that science learning is relevant to all students. The AIL instructional model succeeds the 5Es and utilizes complex and culturally relevant societal challenges to anchor multiple cycles of inquiry and sensemaking, culminating with student explanations/design solutions. AIL employs science education research emphasizing coherence from students’ perspective. In this session, participants will 1) consider their own ideas about teaching complex societal challenges, 2) experience 3D learning, and 3) consider the science concepts of a societal challenge (antibiotic resistance, heart disease, food sustainability, anthropogenic changes to biodiversity).

TAKEAWAYS:
The research-based BSCS Anchored Inquiry Learning instructional model succeeds the 5Es and leverages complex societal issues as anchoring phenomena/problems, culminating tasks, and performance assessments in 3D units of instruction to motivate students and develop agency in addressing these issues.

SPEAKERS:
Cynthia Gay

Contact forces might be all around us, but the juicy nuggets in this unit help them make sense. This session helps you uncover key features in Carnival of Collisions that make it easier to plan, teach, and guide students through puzzling ideas like balanced and unbalanced forces, motion, and collisions. We will walk through the built-in teacher tools, prompts, and routines that support deep thinking and epic classroom moments. Whether students are knocking down bowing pins or smashing watermelons, you will leave with ready-to-use moves that help the learning stick.

TAKEAWAYS:
Discover classroom-ready tools in Carnival of Collisions that help students explore contact forces and investigate what really happens when objects crash, bounce, or come to a sudden stop.

SPEAKERS:
Spencer Martin

Participants will explore a classroom-ready video and engineering task using research from the University of Rhode Island Robotics Lab, where drones are programmed to monitor algae blooms in local ponds. Educators will engage in hands-on algorithm design, pattern recognition, and optimization challenges that mirror authentic engineering practices. This session provides additional classroom-ready videos, tasks, and facilitation strategies to foster an engineering mindset while introducing students to STEAM careers in robotics, environmental science, and computer science. Attendees will leave with ready-to-use materials that promote problem-solving, collaboration, and real-world community connections.

TAKEAWAYS:
Educators will leave with ready-to-use, classroom-tested open source resources and strategies to engage students in real-world engineering with drone technology, strengthen problem-solving skills, and explore STEAM careers.

SPEAKERS:
Charlene Tuttle, Rachele Limberakis

Help students see the link between textiles in their lives and science and engineering, through hands-on experience, language development, and a virtual lab visit! We will investigate textiles and sample an open source video for classroom use. In addition, we will share language-rich card games, linked to the video content. This session connects classroom learning to outside research and answers the question, “How does this lesson connect to the real world?” These resources were developed through a research collaboration among the Colleges of Education & Engineering at URI and the School of Engineering at UCONN through an Office of Naval Research grant addressing STEM workforce development needs. The resources expose elementary students to careers in STEM fields, and offer an invitation for future work in STEM. We will address opportunities for localized learning and connecting with industry partners, including maritime careers. Leave with materials to implement the next day!

TAKEAWAYS:
Through exploring open source resources, you will see the impact of textile engineering on our daily lives and how to translate this into your classroom. Leave with a deeper understanding of how to link engineering and future STEM careers to existing early childhood lessons.

SPEAKERS:
Charlene Tuttle, Rachele Limberakis

How do robotics competitions spark deeper science learning? In this high-energy 60-minute workshop, participants will explore how robotics programs can engage students in authentic challenge, teamwork, and problem-solving while supporting three-dimensional, NGSS-aligned science learning. Led by a robotics team mentor, this session shares practical strategies for using competition experiences to build student sensemaking, strengthen science and engineering practices, and sustain teams over time while widening access for all learners. Attendees will leave with ready-to-use ideas, planning tools, and sustainability strategies they can apply immediately.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn how to use robotics competitions to energize student engagement, strengthen NGSS-aligned science learning, and sustain equitable teams through sensemaking, teamwork, and problem-solving.

SPEAKERS:
Dana Lupton

Why does food in a solar cooker end up overcooked, undercooked, or just right? In this session, educators will explore the juicy nuggets inside the Class CrunchLabs Solar Cook-Off unit that help students make sense of energy transfer, particle motion, temperature, and thermal energy. Through hands-on investigations, modeling routines, discussion strategies, and classroom-ready teacher supports, participants will experience how students build explanations for how and why different foods cook differently in solar cookers. We will highlight the embedded tools, prompts, and sensemaking routines that support three-dimensional learning and student-driven investigation. Whether students are testing reflectors, comparing what factors affect how materials heat up, or debating how energy moves through a system, attendees will leave with practical strategies and engaging ideas they can immediately bring into their classrooms.

TAKEAWAYS:
Discover classroom-ready strategies and tools that help students investigate thermal energy transfer and explain why different foods cook differently in solar cookers.

SPEAKERS:
Spencer Martin

Experience a classroom-ready engineering challenge that integrates physical science and the Engineering Design Process. In this session, participants will investigate the wheel and axle as a simple machine by designing, building, and testing rubber band-powered cars. Through hands-on experimentation, participants will explore how wheel size influences speed, distance traveled, and motion. They will make predictions, conduct trial runs, measure distances, and collect data to identify patterns and draw evidence-based conclusions. By analyzing results and refining their designs, participants will develop an understanding of force, friction, motion, and energy transfer while strengthening their problem-solving, critical thinking, scientific reasoning skills, and increasing their fluency in using the Engineering Design Process. Attendees will leave with the knowledge, materials, and confidence to implement this hands-on STEM investigation in their own classrooms.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will build, test, and optimize a rubber band-powered car while collecting and analyzing data to determine how wheel size affects speed and distance, leaving with a classroom-ready engineering design challenge.

SPEAKERS:
Toby Bothel, Nicole Mills

Get ready to channel your inner builder. In this 2-hour session, you will learn how to teach the kinetic energy hands-on classroom challenges created by the CrunchLabs toy engineers, the same crew behind some of Mark Rober’s most memorable builds. These challenges are more than just fun. They power deeper science understanding and give students the chance to design, test, and think like engineers. We will walk through how to launch a challenge, organize your space, support student testing, and help learners reflect on what they discovered. You will leave with practical strategies to keep the mess under control, the ideas flowing, and the energy high.

TAKEAWAYS:
Get practical strategies for setting up and running CrunchLabs classroom challenges. These hands-on experiences build student confidence, creativity, and sensemaking skills.

SPEAKERS:
Spencer Martin

Science and STEM learning deepen when students engage concepts through multiple modalities. In this interactive session, participants will explore three elementary arts integration experiences embedded within science and engineering units. Attendees will experience movement-based investigations of wind, forces, and energy transfer; a watercolor mixing inquiry that mirrors scientific experimentation in a properties of matter unit; and a partner movement activity that explores material properties through physical representation. Participants will leave with practical strategies for integrating visual arts and movement into science instruction to strengthen conceptual understanding, student engagement, and durable skills such as creativity, collaboration, communication, and problem-solving.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn how purposeful integration of movement and visual arts can deepen elementary students’ understanding of scientific concepts while building creativity, collaboration, communication, and problem-solving skills.

SPEAKERS:
Trudy Giasi

Discover how to leverage AI to design high-impact, interdisciplinary elementary STEM lessons that prepare students for the future workforce. While not all students pursue STEM careers, these lessons cultivate the essential 21st-century skills—critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication—needed for all career pathways. Explore why early engagement is critical for students to identify diverse career opportunities. Participants will learn to apply Backward Design—identifying results, determining evidence, and planning instruction—to integrate community-led STEM experiences. Walk away with actionable, AI-generated lesson examples to implement immediately.

TAKEAWAYS:
Take away a roadmap for AI-assisted, career-aligned STEM instruction. Attendees will use a QR code to access a comprehensive Padlet of resources, featuring the Backward Design framework and ready-to-use interdisciplinary lesson examples for immediate classroom implementation.

SPEAKERS:
Annette Larson

The Eco-Design Builders Project empowers elementary students to explore sustainability, environmental education, and STEM through hands-on learning with 3DuxDesign and recycled materials. Using Design Thinking and the Engineering Design Process, students become young architects and engineers as they design and build eco-friendly communities, sustainable carnival attractions, green spaces, and innovative environmental solutions. This project integrates science, engineering, creativity, and collaboration while teaching students about recycling, renewable energy, water conservation, and responsible community design. Attendees will learn how to implement engaging, standards-aligned sustainability projects that foster problem-solving, student voice, and real-world connections in elementary classrooms. The session will showcase student prototypes, project ideas, classroom strategies, and interdisciplinary connections that support environmental stewardship and 21st-century learning.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn how to use 3DuxDesign and Design Thinking to engage elementary students in hands-on sustainability and environmental STEM projects that promote creativity, engineering, and real-world problem-solving.

SPEAKERS:
Kim Alvin De Lara

Explore classroom-ready NASA Artemis educator resources designed to engage K–12 students in lunar exploration, engineering design, and STEM careers. This poster will highlight hands-on activities, lesson ideas, multimedia tools, engineering challenges, and outreach resources that educators can easily adapt for classrooms, afterschool programs, and informal STEM settings. Featured materials will support student sensemaking through authentic NASA mission connections while encouraging problem-solving, collaboration, and curiosity about space exploration. Attendees will be able to browse sample activities, visuals, and resource collections and discuss implementation ideas for a variety of grade levels and learning environments. QR codes will provide easy access to free NASA and Illinois Space Grant resources for immediate classroom use.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will leave with free, classroom-ready NASA Artemis resources, hands-on activity ideas, and implementation strategies to engage K–12 students in authentic STEM learning connected to lunar exploration and space careers.

SPEAKERS:
Heidi Bjerke

This poster shares the design of an Introduction to Engineering course for preservice elementary teachers that helps future educators connect engineering design with science teaching. The course combines hands-on investigations, science and mathematics connections, computational thinking, lesson planning, and field-based teaching with elementary students. Examples include wind tubes, circuits, electromagnets, Makey Makey projects, micro:bit investigations, and machine learning recycling tasks. The poster highlights how preservice teachers move from doing activities to planning lessons that include problem scoping, criteria and constraints, testing, data collection, iteration, reflection, and student explanation. Attendees will see a course structure, sample projects, and practical ideas for preparing future teachers to teach science through engineering design with confidence.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn how a preservice teacher education course uses field-based components, school partnerships, lesson planning, and hands-on engineering investigations to prepare future elementary teachers to teach science through engineering design.

SPEAKERS:
John Somers

This workshop will present a climate engineering teaching module that was co-designed by Indiana University atmospheric scientists and veteran high school educators for the Educating for Environmental Change (EfEC) project. The module consists of five complete lessons that encourage students to design technological solutions to slow global warming: including in-class experimentation demonstrating the potential cooling effect resulting from brightening marine clouds. The hands-on activities are supplemented with cutting-edge climate engineering and climate modeling research – including discussions on geoengineering’s potential to limit the negative impacts of climate change. Each lesson is aligned with Indiana state science standards and the Next Generation Science Standards. This workshop will be led by Dr. Ben Kravitz and Dr. Paul Goddard from Indiana University’s Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.

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:
Ben Kravitz, Paul Goddard, Adam Scribner

When runaway trucks enter the classroom, they bring the kind of chaos, danger, and mayhem that immediately makes students want to figure out how something so massive and fast can actually be stopped. The juicy nuggets in this unit help students uncover the science behind those ideas.This session helps you uncover key features in the Rocks vs Big Rigs unit that make it easier to plan, teach, and guide students through puzzling questions like: How can tiny pieces of gravel stop huge semis? And why are faster trucks harder to stop than heavier ones? We will walk through the built-in teacher tools, prompts, and routines that support deep thinking and epic classroom moments. Whether students are testing mini rigs of different weights on ramps or sending trucks crashing into rice beds, you’ll leave with ready-to-use moves that help the learning stick.

TAKEAWAYS:
Discover classroom-ready tools that help students explore kinetic energy and investigate what makes some things harder to stop than others.

SPEAKERS:
Spencer Martin

ASA’s Artemis missions provide powerful opportunities to inspire students through authentic connections to science, engineering, technology, and future career pathways. This interactive session will explore classroom strategies, educator resources, and outreach approaches that use NASA’s return to the Moon to increase student engagement in STEM learning and career exploration. Participants will examine hands-on activities, multimedia resources, engineering design challenges, and real-world mission applications that help students connect classroom science to future workforce opportunities. The session will also highlight ways educators can foster curiosity, problem solving, collaboration, and STEM identity through space exploration themes across diverse learning environments. Attendees will leave with practical resources and implementation ideas to help students envision themselves as part of the future Artemis generation.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will gain practical strategies and NASA Artemis resources that help students connect STEM learning to future careers in science, engineering, technology, and space exploration.

SPEAKERS:
Heidi Bjerke

Ever wish Mark Rober could co-teach your class? This session shows how Class CrunchLabs uses video, voice, and story to spark curiosity and launch rigorous learning. We will break down how to introduce a storyline, use Mark’s videos as authentic investigation starters, and weave hands-on challenges through episodes of science and engineering. You will also get a peek behind the scenes at how the team builds each unit to help students explain ‘the how’ after experiencing ‘the wow.’ Optional bonus: watermelon smashing included.

TAKEAWAYS:
See how NGSS storylines, teacher supports, and Mark Rober’s videos work together to launch engaging science units that get students asking questions and thinking like scientists from day one.

SPEAKERS:
Spencer Martin

Transform your classroom into a hub of engineering innovation using everyday items! This interactive session will give 3rd-8th grade science teachers an engaging activity for integrating STEM engineering challenges into their classroom. Participants will dive into a hands-on activity to show how they can spark critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity in their students making engineering accessible, exciting, and highly effective, proving that impactful STEM learning is within reach for all. Join us to ignite curiosity and cultivate the next generation of innovators!

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will engage in a hands-on engineering challenge using everyday materials and leave with a ready-to-use classroom activity that builds problem-solving, critical thinking, and creativity in grades 3–8 STEM instruction.

SPEAKERS:
Nicole Mills

Teaching Project Lead the Way Design and Modeling course to my 7th and 8th graders, students are tasked with researching, designing and creating a therapeutic toy for a child who has cerebral palsy. Students first met with our Applied Skills students and teachers to first meet with students who have cerebral palsy and learn more about the condition and ask questions/get advice. Next they met with our school physical therapist to also learn about the condition and how it affect the human body and exercises that can help the individual. Then it was time for brainstorming their designs and creating their toys using Tinker cad for 3D designs of their prototype , robotics (Hummingbird kits) and in some case 3D printing of materials. After 2 weeks, our Applied Skills students and teachers came back to review/play with the toys and gave valuable feedback to the students.

TAKEAWAYS:
Students will learn empathy and compassion from completing this project as they get to learn from their fellow students on cerebral palsy and how it can affect their body. It brings attending to the condition and allows collaboration with students of different abilities to learn from each other.

SPEAKERS:
Tiauna Washington

In this hands-on session, participants will explore how to emphasize the “T” in STEM by integrating simple microcontrollers into authentic scientific inquiry. Attendees will use microcontrollers as accessible measuring tools to collect real-time data, observe patterns, and support evidence-based explanations. Through short inquiry investigations, we will examine how technology can deepen students’ understanding of scientific concepts while building their confidence with computational thinking. This session is designed for beginners and those looking to expand their STEM toolkit with meaningful, manageable technology integration.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will use microcontrollers and scientific inquiry to give students a hands-on experience with a technological tool that has sensor integration. The investigation will show the three dimensions and how the microcontroller can be a tool that drives modern STEM exploration.

SPEAKERS:
Susan German