Sponsoring Company: DoD STEM

Build STEM culture through community engagement! Develop interest and awareness, leading to increased demand for STEM programming and STEM career pathway courses.

TAKEAWAYS:
1. Learn strategies for hosting community engagement events, including family STEM nights; 2. Explore the role of partnerships in supporting engagement events; and 3. Walk away with resources to support establishing and hosting community engagement events.

SPEAKERS:
Lisa Blank (Watertown City School District: Watertown, NY), Tiara Davis (Teacher: Charlotte, NC), Heather Overkamp (Portsmouth Public Schools: Portsmouth, VA), Patty Brunet (Cypress High School: Cypress, CA)

Sponsoring Company: Green Ninja

This session will share a framework for how to create compelling learning experiences where students use science and engineering concepts to solve local environmental problems.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will: 1. be able to create a storyline and lesson sequence outline that focuses on a local environmental issue of interest; 2. be able to bundle different science TEKS using a storyline; and 3. develop experience using localized phenomena to create student-oriented instruction.

SPEAKERS:
Eugene Cordero (Green Ninja: Mountain View, CA)

Sponsoring Company: DoD STEM

Engage the power of visible thinking to heighten learning through scientific inquiry and authentic questioning while fostering connections with and between students in your classroom.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will: 1. understand and explain visible thinking; 2. describe multiple benefits of applying visible thinking in the classroom; and 3. learn strategies to apply visible thinking in inquiry-based science learning.

SPEAKERS:
Lisa Blank (Watertown City School District: Watertown, NY), Patty Brunet (Cypress High School: Cypress, CA), Tiara Davis (Teacher: Charlotte, NC), Heather Overkamp (Portsmouth Public Schools: Portsmouth, VA)

Sponsoring Company: Activate Learning

Join us for an engaging session that introduces the interactive digital edition (IDE) of OpenSciEd. Come explore the teacher’s side and experience the student side of the new IDE. The session will begin with an overview of the teacher's edition and its structure: Plan, Teach, Assign, and Assess. While engaged in an OpenSciEd lesson, teachers will learn the different features that students have available to use in their interactive student edition.

TAKEAWAYS:
1. This interactive digital product can enhance learning but does not replace student interaction with hands-on activities; 2. Effective use of an online student notebook; and 3. Teacher will receive a 60-day trial of the Interactive Digital edition of OpenSciEd.

SPEAKERS:
Tracy Marmolejo (Activate Learning: Greenwich, CT)

Sponsoring Company: DoD STEM

Hear about how DoD STEM partners with nonprofits, academia, industry, and government to work in schools and produce college- and career-ready graduates.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn: 1. about the mission and vision of DoD STEM; 2. how DoD STEM programs connect schools, students, and teachers with STEM professionals and opportunities; and 3. how they can engage with DoD STEM to support and/or enrich local programming.

SPEAKERS:
Sara Leikin (National Math + Science Initiative: Dallas, TX), Rebecca Stanley (DoD STEM/RTI International: Durham, NC), Jennifer Preston (DoD STEM/RTI International: Research Triangle Park, NC), Laura Larkin (Einstein Fellow, DoD STEM: Washington, DC)

Sponsoring Company: National Science Foundation, Presidential Awards

Join NSF as we share professional development opportunities for teachers within the federal government and hear from Presidential Awardees about their experiences.

TAKEAWAYS:
1. Federal professional development opportunities that you may not have been aware of before; 2. The Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching (PAEMST) application process and benefits received; and 3. The paths of accomplished teachers and Presidential Awardees as they continue to grow their career.

SPEAKERS:
James Colby (National Science Foundation: Alexandria, VA)

Sponsoring Company: Education First and Cornell Tech

In this fast-paced, interactive workshop, we’ll give you a few tools to help you bring computing into your classroom without any code.

TAKEAWAYS:
1. Explore ways to integrate computational thinking in the science classroom; 2. Discover ways personal data is collected and used on the internet; and 3. Learn about fun tools for bringing AI and computer vision into the curriculum.

SPEAKERS:
Diane Levitt (Cornell Tech: New York, NY)

Sponsoring Company: Texas Instruments

You will learn how to build and code a four-chambered heart (no coding experience required) while learning about how the heart works. This is a great project for middle and high school science and STEM students!

TAKEAWAYS:
1. You can do STEM with your science students and science with your STEM students!; 2. Apply knowledge of science to inform an engineering design (artificial heart); and 3. Combining science, coding, and engineering design helps students get to higher-order thinking skills.

SPEAKERS:
Jeffrey Lukens (Retired Science Teacher: Sioux Falls, SD)

Sponsoring Company: Milestone C

Teaching students that part of success is failing and learning from those failures is paramount to their education.

TAKEAWAYS:
Practices around rewarding failure in the classroom.

SPEAKERS:
Dave Conelias (Milestone C LLC: Shelton, CT)

Sponsoring Company: Milestone C

Come learn how to expose your students to a wide variety of Tech/STEM by establishing a foundation of skills inside a classroom. Make students developers instead of consumers of Tech/STEM.

TAKEAWAYS:
Core skills all students should be learning and how to bring these into your classroom.

SPEAKERS:
Dave Conelias (Milestone C LLC: Shelton, CT)

Sponsoring Company: AeroTech/Quest

Explore the differences between aerospace-grade solid composite propellant model rocket motors and traditional black powder model rocket motors in science education, and assemble a Quest Astra III model rocket kit during the workshop to take home.

TAKEAWAYS:
1. The differences between solid composite propellant model rocket motors and traditional black powder model rocket motors; 2. Why solid composite propellant model rocket motors represent the future of model and hobby rocket flight; and 3. How composite propellant model and hobby rocketry can lead to aerospace careers in engineering, propulsion, aerodynamics, telemetry, payload design, mission planning, and much more.

SPEAKERS:
Dane Boles (AeroTech / Quest Divison of RCS Rocket Motor Components, Inc.: , United States)

Sponsoring Company: STEMI

Join us for a breakdown of Artificial Intelligence. We'll discuss how industry is using and developing this new technology, share an experience with AI, and explore how to bring this cutting-edge subject to your classroom.

TAKEAWAYS:
Best practices of inviting industry into your classroom via an innovative and plug-and-play STEM program. Learn how your school can become the School of the Future.

SPEAKERS:
Dave Conelias (Milestone C LLC: Shelton, CT), Marin Trošelj (STEMI d.o.o.: , Croatia)