Participants will use sensemaking and the engineering design process to solve a real world food production problem in a small scale format. This lesson introduces the Food Delivery Challenge, in which participants must design a gravity feeder to carry food (chicken feed) to twelve hungry chickens for over 24 hours. To accomplish the task students must design and build a model of an efficient gravity feeder using the materials available to them. The scenario presented to the class: One of the feeders in your uncle’s barn has broken down, and a new one will not arrive until next month. You must create a gravity feeder to satisfy 12 chickens for 24 hours consistently to ensure the health of your flock. Participants will research, design, build and test their design before presenting to the group for feedback, Participants will then use the feedback to redesign for an improved feeder.

TAKEAWAYS:
1. Use the engineering design process to collaborate, design and build a gravitational feeder system that will feed 10 pounds of feed over a 24 hour period. 2. Present your design plan, and final product to the class for feedback. 3. Provide feedback to the design team for design improvement.

SPEAKERS:
Leah LaCrosse (McCormick Junior High School: Huron, OH), Heather Bryan (Nourish the Future - Education Projects, LLC: Columbus, OH)

Using data collection , participants will learn how to actively engage students in a conversation about data and the phenomena that it explains. Participants will learn how to create and/or modify old lessons, labs, and activities into opportunities for discussion , inquiry, and discovery using calculators, Nspire, and labquests.

TAKEAWAYS:
Create a dynamic lesson for use in the science classroom using data collection.

SPEAKERS:
Chris Coker (Camden Fairview High School: Camden, AR)

We are naturally curious, prone to ask why? How? What? Unfortunately, somewhere along the way students lose the trust in their voices to ask questions of and from data. But data are what we use to do science and it permeates all aspects of society today. What should we do? Stop teaching the vocabulary of science and data first, and instead leverage classroom-ready strategies to empower students to lead with their innate curiosity to practice critical 21st century data literacy skills and master the science content. Join us to explore connections between our science content, inquiry-based activities, and data skills. We will experience research-based strategies and freely available resources for integrating phenomenon-based and local data into our science instruction to promote science literacy and student empowerment. We will participate in activities ourselves and reflect on approaches for how to bring these into our classrooms. Participants will leave more empowered to integrate data into their science content in purposeful ways to better help students do and communicate science. Working with and learning science from data fosters critical thinking skills, lifelong interests in science, and facilitates learners’ overall self-identity as a scientist. Let’s set all of our students up for success!

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will identify how data literacy is a critical aspect of science literacy in the 21st century, how students can do a lot more with data than we often think or presume from their science vocabulary alone, and how to leverage existing strategies to authentically integrate data into 6-12 science instruction to teach their science content and increase literacy simultaneously.

SPEAKERS:
Kristin Hunter-Thomson (Dataspire Education & Evaluation, LLC: No City, No State)

Attendees will experience the Anchoring Phenomenon Routine as students do in iHub’s Polar Ice unit. This routine engages students in asking questions about why people from around the Earth are being displaced from their homes as a starting point in a unit of study focused on how we can slow or stop polar ice from melting before the sea level rises too much. After experiencing the routine, attendees will analyze the routine through an equity lens.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn how the iHub curriculum supports teachers in eliciting and making use of students’ own questions and their experiences in instruction, which supports student motivation and agency (Harris, Phillips, & Penuel, 2011).

SPEAKERS:
Rachel Patton (Denver Public Schools), Kathryn Fleegal (Denver Public Schools: Denver, CO), Beth Vinson (Denver Public Schools: Denver, CO)

Learning through place-based, student-centered, teacher-facilitated STEM inquiry increases student engagement in and ownership of learning and promotes student growth in science and engineering practices, disciplinary core ideas, and crosscutting concepts. Using a unit plan I developed for exploring local microclimates, participants will engage in activities and discussion of techniques for cultivating students as collaborators in the learning process. The unit is designed to encourage growth in asking questions, designing and conducting investigations, collecting data, making sense of data, communicating findings, and identifying local problems and designing solutions to a student-identified problem. Participants will use NASA infrared images of surface temperatures captured during an ISS mission to observe the urban heat island phenomenon. They will explore Google Earth to spark questions about surface heating that can be answered through investigation of the local neighborhood or school campus. Given a list of equipment that students used during the unit, participants will collaboratively design an investigation to collect place-based data. Discussion includes extension activities that facilitate student understanding of surface heating and cooling. Discussion also includes how revision and reflection can be used to monitor individual student growth and promote ownership of learning by students. Emphasis is on facilitation techniques.

TAKEAWAYS:
Learning through place-based, student-centered, teacher-facilitated STEM inquiry increases student engagement in and ownership of learning and promotes student growth in science and engineering practices, disciplinary core ideas, and crosscutting concepts.

SPEAKERS:
Loris Chen (Science Education Consultant: Fair Lawn, NJ)