Participants will learn strategies and receive numerous resources that increase students’ scientific literacy. The hands-on approach has participants engaged in the activities, games, and more.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will: 1. learn new strategies for incorporating scientific literacy into their lessons; and 2. receive numerous activities, templates, games, and other resources to help with doing this. These resources can be used “as is” or modified to allow for differentiation based on the needs of the learners. Strategies and resources will include ones effective with ELL and EC students.

SPEAKERS:
Iris Mudd (Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools: Winston Salem, NC)

The forthcoming OpenSciEd High School chemistry course combines physical science and Earth and space science NGSS performance expectations as a way to engage students in developing understandings around energy and matter. Learn about the focus of the five units that make up this course and their associated performance expectation bundles to see how the three dimensions are used as a way to authentically engage students in making sense of both physical science and earth and space science related phenomena and design solutions. In the session, we will highlight how anchoring phenomena of the first unit, typically associated with earth and space science, helps students make sense of the particulate nature of matter, energy transfers in earth systems, feedback loops, and human interactions with their environment. An in-depth examination of the performance expectation bundles for the following four units will help illustrate the learning progressions students will follow to develop progressively more complex models of the particle nature of matter, its properties, and its interactions using the lenses of all crosscutting concepts, in particular, patterns, energy and matter, structure and function, and stability and change.

TAKEAWAYS:
Incorporation of earth and space science NGSS performance expectations within a chemistry curriculum supports student engagement in and sensemaking of chemistry concepts around properties and interactions of matter and energy.

SPEAKERS:
Nicole Vick (Northwestern University), Dan Voss (Northwestern University: Evanston, IL), Michael Novak (Northwestern University: Evanston, IL), Tara McGill (Northwestern University: Evanston, IL)

Hexagonal Thinking ensures the learning environment features a high degree of student engagement by providing a framework for academic discussion where all students participate. Participants will collaborate with colleagues to experience Hexagonal Thinking using science and math content vocabulary and visuals that will then be used to synthesize information into a piece of critical writing.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn a strategy for making thinking, learning and content connections visible in the classroom.

SPEAKERS:
Michelle Yates (Aledo ISD: Aledo, TX), Miranda Rosenhoover (Aledo ISD: Aledo, TX)

Come explore creative storylines for integrating up-to-date, research-driven climate science into high school Chemistry courses.

TAKEAWAYS:
1. Climate-related storylines provide powerful frameworks for students to learn fundamental chemistry core ideas and reinforce understandings of crosscutting concepts and science and engineering practices; 2. The wealth of Earth-orbiting NASA satellite data now available in real time provides us with an unprecedented understanding of the science of climate change and also provides many opportunities for student experiential learning; and The latest advances in climate modeling can allow all students to both see the inequitable impacts that humans are currently having on Earth systems and build a sense of hope in how future changes in human practices can reverse current impact trends.

SPEAKERS:
Michael Wysession (Washington University in St. Louis: Saint Louis, MO)

To help develop more scientifically curious and literate students, we use scientific literature or documentaries to engage students in developing the NGSS science practices. Students find an interesting topic, generate a question, collect and analyze data and then develop a Science Installation that communicates their learning to the greater community. Our most recent class project had students study how to grow food in a simulated Mars environment with the conditions controlled by student programmed raspberry pis. High school students organized 6th graders to do hands on data collection. They created a 10x12 foot exhibit that looked like a Martian landscape and highlighted the equipment they used with the plants still growing. The display included QR codes to communicate data and research using student-created videos, infographics, and data tables. Other installations include a monochromatic yellow room where everything looks grey and allowed observers to learn about the properties of light and the ways light energy is used in photosynthesis, the way it can be used to promote electrons, and the way it produces color. Other exhibits include sound waves and a history or music and musical instruments, the chemistry of color, and an environmental study of our use of carbon.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn how to guide students in the reading of scientific literature or the watching of documentaries in order to generate an authentic question and project. (How can we develop the capacity to farm on Mars? How does yellow monochromatic light produce the absence of color (an episode of Abstract, What can we learn about pollen structure from 3D printed files from Bayer’s agricultural division?) Participants will review a process to take the question and generate an authentic study that transcends a single class, grade, or discipline. (Students in 11th grade worked with students in 6th grade to test growing plants under controlled conditions that simulated Mars. Students in art and physics classes explored the properties of light and created a light-based art exhibit with science lessons on QR codes) Participants will explore a template for guiding students through the creation of an installation/exhibit that creatively shows the question, their experiment, their analysis, and potential solutions or conclusions in a creative and community-informing way. The exhibit is similar to an art installation with QR codes and experiment/study artifacts presented in a museum like scenario.

SPEAKERS:
Elizabeth Helfant (Mary Institute and Saint Louis Country Day School: Saint Louis, MO)

NEED’s Science of Energy stations provide a hands-on approach to experimenting with objects used in student’s daily lives while incorporating scientific processing skills such as making observations, measuring, recording results, compare and contrast, categorize, make predictions, analyze and graph results, and draw conclusions. Workshop participants will rotate through six stations just as their students would in the classroom or OST Program, to learn about the different forms of energy and energy transformations using objects such as a toy car, apple, yo-yo, compass, bouncy ball, glow stick, etc. Using the same materials, the station guides can be easily differentiated for elementary, intermediate, and secondary levels. Each station includes a "What's Happening" article that provides additional informational text on the energy transformation that took place at the station and ties to more real-life examples for further visualization and understanding. The station guides have been correlated to each state’s individual science and math standards, as well as effectively support Next Generation Science Standards.

TAKEAWAYS:
Workshop participants will engage in hands-on experiments just as their students would, using items we encounter in our daily lives that demonstrate energy forms and their transformations and applications to real-life examples for further visualization and understanding.

SPEAKERS:
Cori Nelson (The NEED Project: Manassas, VA), Sharon Bird (The NEED Project: Manassas, VA)

Sagan said that when kids are young, they cannot stop asking questions. By high school, they stop asking. This needs to change.

TAKEAWAYS:
Ways we can help students learn and retain science concepts, critical-thinking skills, and inquisitiveness using alternative approaches to teaching.

SPEAKERS:
Juan Bacigalupi (Eagle Hill School: Hardwick, MA)

Students come into a science classroom with varying or little to no background knowledge. Mathematical modeling in the science classroom is a critical piece of any three-dimensional lesson. Come learn how one science teacher uses real-world student-collected data to make modeling fun and inclusive of all students!

TAKEAWAYS:
Equity in the science/math classroom; data collection and analysis; and mathematical modeling.

SPEAKERS:
Stacy Thibodeaux (Southside High School: Youngsville, LA)

We are living in an Age of Misinformation. Developing the capabilities to evaluate scientific information is a key goal of scientific literacy. Moreover, “obtaining, evaluating and communicating information” is a core practice of NGSS. The NGSS standards, however, were developed a decade ago before misinformation became so pervasive and were not developed to address this threat. Much of this misinformation is scientific. Therefore, this session will present a set of ideas and materials about how to address this challenge. These have emerged from a report developed at Stanford University drawing on the expertise of an international group of science educators, scientists and psychologists entitled “Science Education in an Age of Misinformation”. In this session, we will present the main arguments and recommendations of the report. Using a set of practical, web-based classroom examples, participants will work in small groups to trial and discuss the suggested teaching approaches and materials we have developed. Opportunities will be provided for feedback, questions and discussion in a final plenary. What we will present will empower teachers of science with ways they can support their students to avoid being misled by the purveyors of misinformation.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn what are the challenges posed by misinformation and what they can do to help science education address this challenge using practical examples of exercises and ionnovative teaching materials.

SPEAKERS:
Daniel Pimentel (Stanford University: Stanford, CA)

The GISP2 H-Core was collected in 1992 adjacent to the Greenland Ice Sheet Project Two (GISP2) drill site. The GISP2-H 125.6-meter firm and ice core is a record of 430 years of liquid electrical conductivity and nitrate concentrations. The liquid electrical conductivity sequence contains signals from a number of known volcanic eruptions that provide a dating system at specific locations along the core. The terrestrial and solar background nitrate records show seasonal and annual variations – as well as unique events. Several major nitrate anomalies within the record do not correspond to any known terrestrial or solar events, and there is compelling evidence that some nitrate anomalies within the GISP2 H-Core could possibly be a record of supernova events. This investigation provides participants with a better understanding of the scientific process of analyzing data and developing models to construct knowledge, and defending the results. Sometimes there is no answer key, only possible solutions from analyzing and constructing knowledge from multiple sources that cross traditional disciplines. The materials focus on NGSS scientific practices, crosscutting concepts and the Earth and space sciences core disciplinary ideas – including analyzing and interpreting data, patterns, cycles of energy and matter, Earth systems and Earth and human activity.

TAKEAWAYS:
In constructing new knowledge, sometimes there is no definitive answer, only plausible conclusions based on constructing, analyzing, and comparing data and research from multiple disciplines.

SPEAKERS:
Donna Young (NASA/NSO/UoL Program Manager: Laughlin, NV)

Come learn how to teach in three dimensions and advance students’ scientific literacy by strategically applying the use of CERs and CEJs in your classroom.

TAKEAWAYS:
After this session, participants will be able to identify opportunities for using CERs and CEJs to facilitate student discourse and discussion and apply what they have learned to their own classroom.

SPEAKERS:
McKenna Serowka (Lake Zurich High School: Lake Zurich, IL)

Our master teacher video case studies are used to facilitate discussion about the science practices of Asking Questions and Modeling with inservice and preservice teachers.

TAKEAWAYS:
1. Using classroom video as a focus of discussion can provide teachers with an avenue for substantive conversations about their teaching practice; 2. Our case studies present real classroom settings where the teachers are having their students work on the practice of questioning and/ or modeling; and 3. Participants will view the videos and reflect on how the teachers are facilitating the use of science practices in their classrooms.

SPEAKERS:
David Henry (SUNY Buffalo State College: Buffalo, NY), Alayla Ende (University at Buffalo, SUNY: Buffalo, NY), Lisa Brosnick (SUNY Buffalo State College: Buffalo, NY), Alan Baczkiewicz (Sweet Home Middle School: Amherst, NY)