Rubrics are great assessment tools when grading lab reports and projects. Rubrics help to clarify expectations, inspire students to set goals and give educators a way to improve feedback that stimulates student reflection. Emphasis is on application and analysis not getting the right answers.

TAKEAWAYS:
The Poster will highlight best practices for creating and using rubrics to grade lab reports and projects. The poster will include best practices, main components of a rubric, tips for creating rubrics and well as best practices for feedback and grading using rubrics.

SPEAKERS:
Kimberly Morton (Instructional Coach)

STEP UP is a national community of physics teachers, researchers, & professional societies. We design research-based materials to empower teachers, change culture, & inspire young women to pursue physics. The poster presents the research behind the design, evidence of impact and propagation model.

TAKEAWAYS:
Learn about research behind the design, and evidence of effectiveness behind classroom interventions that you can use to expand the narrow perceptions of physics and promote supportive classroom cultures to facilitate physics identity development, particularly for women.

SPEAKERS:
Nicole Murawski (Royal Oak High School (retired))

Here we share promising practices from a case study at Jackson-Reed High School, where we implement a framework focused on empowering young non-men to pursue engineering through student-led community engagement.

TAKEAWAYS:
We believe this framework is a promising strategy and can be easily implemented in a variety of classroom settings.

SPEAKERS:
Ella Davis (Student Intern), Kimberly Jacoby Morris (STEM Program Coordinator)

Although cancer biology is an important topic with the study life science, the definition of cancer literacy has been ill defined. This project demonstrates limitations of using one measure of cancer literacy, the Cancer Health Literacy Test-6, within the scope of a cancer biology outreach program.

TAKEAWAYS:
Cancer literacy has been broadly defined and assessed. Assessment of cancer biology knowledge may be best suited by the use of instructor-prepared, lesson-specific assessments.

SPEAKERS:
Emily Heath (Student: Warrenville, SC), Kamani Barnes (Student: Warrenville, SC), Alexandria Martin (Student: , SC), Christie Palladino (Teacher: Warrenville, SC)

NASA’s Astrophysics UoL network of partnerships provide STEM educators programs, from exoplanet searches to image analysis of supernovas and galaxies to implement programs specific to individual audiences - and provides a wide variety of supporting webinars, tutorials, activities and investigations.

TAKEAWAYS:
NASA’s UoL team connects the public and learners to data, discoveries, and experts from NASA’s Astrophysics missions. The team of scientists, engineers, and educators have direct connections to these missions, and provide a range of projects and interactive activities for any educational setting.

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

The Berry College STEMTeach program serves to support STEM-savvy students as they pursue the teaching profession through programming and mentorship opportunities with master teachers in local (K-12) schools.

TAKEAWAYS:
By working with the next generation of teachers, master teachers have a unique opportunity to shape the future of the teaching profession.

SPEAKERS:
Robert Bice (Berry College: Mount Berry, GA), Blake Baxter (Pre-Service Teacher and Student: Mount Berry, GA)

Learn how to use guiding phenomena to increase student engagement and inquiry. The guiding phenomenon of Sickle Cell will be demonstrated for Biology and Mangrove Forests for Environmental Science.

TAKEAWAYS:
From this session, attendees will learn how to use guiding phenomena to develop units that engage students and increase inquiry.

SPEAKERS:
Elissa Blount (Vidalia High School: Vidalia, GA)

Students may lose confidence in science skills when inconsistencies are not addressed. Our project shows that students can feel success by understanding measurement error, identifying ways to reduce measurement error, and analyzing the impact of those modifications.

TAKEAWAYS:
This project will demonstrate educationally and statistically significant impact of a piloted, experiment-based measurement error lesson. Attendees will take home tips for addressing inconsistent data to foster student success.

SPEAKERS:
Alexandria Martin (Student: , SC), Tiannah Green (Student: Warrenville, SC), Hannah Smith (Student: Warrenville, SC), Darneisha Hughes (Student: Warrenville, SC), Destiny Ramos (Student: Warrenville, SC), Janiya Dunbar (Student: Warrenville, SC), Alexis Wren (Student: Warrenville, SC), Samantha Brosnahan (Aiken County Career Cente: Langley, SC), Vivian Swearingen (Student: Warrenville, SC), Sophia Taylor-Davis (Student: Warrenville, SC), Aubria Johnson (Student: Warrenville, SC), Jose Rodriguez (Student: Warrenville, SC), Atticus Lull (Student: Warrenville, SC), Savannah Manning (Student: Warrenville, SC), Chassity Williams (Student: Warrenville, SC), Kayleigh Thigpen (Student: Warrenville, SC), Katherine Roberts (Student: Warrenville, SC), Christie Palladino (Teacher: Warrenville, SC)

Joining a research lab as an undergraduate is a boon to many future career directions, making it important to equip students with the tools to find and contact potential laboratories. We will discuss evidence for the need for these tools as well as a tested strategy for their input into classrooms.

TAKEAWAYS:
Gaps in knowledge created by socio-economic differences, being a first-generation college student, etc., can make it challenging to find a research laboratory, or decide what skills are required to join. We will demonstrate a modular teaching device to help fill this void.

SPEAKERS:
Joseph Ruesch (Postdoctoral Researcher/Educator: Ithaca, NY)

This project was funded by a National Science Foundation grant to expose high school students to geoscience within their required science curriculum. A collateral benefit is integrating key concepts in other sciences. In Biology, natural selection requires eons (“deep time”) to create Earth’s biodiversity. In project-based learning using fossil-bearing rocks of multiple ages, students experience deep time concretely. A barrier to hands-on fossil study is the expense of specimens good enough for university students to systematically learn fossil taxa. However, imperfect samples can connect anyone to deep time. Ironically, some such samples are simply dumped when teachers return from professional development field trips. This presentation reveals a path to making use of such ordinary material by 1) circling fossils in ink, 2) creating a picture guide from circled fossils, 3) building a PBL unit uniting those fossils with a biodiversity-though-time graphic known as a Tree of Life diagram.

TAKEAWAYS:
Might students better master evolution standards, especially extinction and adaptation, by encountering fossils through "deep time"? Teacher-collected samples, with fossils circled in ink, a picture guide made from the set, and a detailed Tree of Life diagram form foundations for PBL exploration.

SPEAKERS:
Adrianna Rajkumar (Lecturer), Katty Mobasher (Professor of Geology and GIS: , GA), Bill Witherspoon (geologist/educator: Decatur, GA)

Students from Anna-Jonesboro High School and Marion High School worked together to complete a field study on tardigrades and biodiversity.

TAKEAWAYS:
Students felt more driven to succeed in their scientific research when working with peers from another school.

SPEAKERS:
Emily Richbourg (Anna Jonesboro Community High School)

Students will present this poster that describes how they design, 3D print and solder lights for their global peers who are living in light poverty. The Design Thinking Process begins with empathize, so students interact with peers living in light poverty to understand their realities. This connection changes the learning from something that the teacher is doing to them to something they are doing for their new friend. The remainder of the Design Thinking Process encourages communication, critical thinking and creativity along with STEM skills to produce a new custom-made light. At the end, not only do more students have clean lights to continue their studies, but the presenting students believe that they can make a difference in the world and are empowered to act when they see problems rather than wait for someone else. Large percentages of females who participate in CurrentGeneration.org alter their trajectories and attend engineering programs at post-secondary.

TAKEAWAYS:
Solving real problems for real people brings motivation and excellence to learning across many disciplines. Students are able to uncover new skills and passions while developing their STEM skills and sense of global citizenship. They are empowered to act to solve problems rather than wait.

SPEAKERS:
Chris Ryan (PhD student/Research Associate: , NB), Ian Fogarty (Riverview High School: Riverview, NB)

This poster session will present research on how chemistry professors or science content experts view creativity in their subject matter and their subject matter teaching and connect these findings to practical applications in the classroom.

TAKEAWAYS:
By studying and realizing how content experts view creativity and how they implement it into their classrooms and labs, this presentation will share how preservice methods instructors can better organize and provide experiences to explain how science content can be learned and taught.

SPEAKERS:
William Veal (College of Charleston: Charleston, SC)

Students in K-12 science classrooms don’t think about diagrams the same way adults do, and can be easily “overloaded.” Research in cognition gives us tools to make science diagrams that more effectively support learning. Surprise: often, students learn more without features like arrows and colors!

TAKEAWAYS:
Effective diagrams direct student attention to the most important information and relationships while minimizing cognitive load. Strategies for doing so include tree structures, explicit cues for implicit information, replacing realistic photos with illustrations, and use of the proximity principle.

SPEAKERS:
Audrey Rabi Whitaker (Academy for Young Writers: Brooklyn, NY)

An AD can decrease the amount of waste in landfills, and produce clean energy, the byproduct of digestate (liquid and solid) can be used as fertilizer, it prevents pollution of the atmosphere, and the processing time takes (20 to 30 days) less than composting.

TAKEAWAYS:
This research aimed to identify and create a way to repurpose and utilize organic waste material that usually ends up in landfills. By creating a closed system within the laboratory, we measured the gas production of carbon dioxide and methane gas, and which waste produces the most biogas.

SPEAKERS:
Candace Edmerson (Duncanville High School: Duncanville, TX)

Using a sample of 755 STEM undergraduates from the National Longitudinal Study of Freshmen, we examined the relationship between students’ years of high school study in STEM courses and their retention in STEM college majors.

TAKEAWAYS:
Our findings suggest that STEM undergraduate students who took more Physics and Chemistry courses in their high school tended to be more likely to stay in STEM majors in their college years compared to their peers who did not or did so less.

SPEAKERS:
Peter Cho (Student), Young Kim (Professor: Azusa, CA)

The Science Teacher Residency (STaR) Program was launched in 2018 in response to the need to expand access to high quality professional development for science teachers in Arizona. It is designed for third through eighth grade teachers from Title 1 designated schools, and provides instructional tools and resources to participants for free. The program is designed around its Theory of Change, which involves four facets: pedagogical approaches, content learning, access to expertise, and materials and resources. The program is externally evaluated by the Lawrence Hall of Science. Data on content knowledge level, fascination level, interest level, and intention to pursue science will be featured on the poster. Our target audience is for professional development providers.

TAKEAWAYS:
STaR expands access to high-quality teaching practice in science education for Arizona teachers. PD facilitators can obtain new ideas for research-based implementation of pedagogy, content learning, access to expertise, and materials and resources.

SPEAKERS:
Brenna Chambers (Manager of Professional Learning), Judith Lozoya (Professional Development Facilitator: Phoenix, AZ), Jennifer Petersen (Professional Development Facilitator: Phoenix, AZ)

Exposure to STEM in a traditional science classroom is a gateway for students to start thinking about pursuing STEM fields. The session will discuss how to take a traditional inquiry lab done in the science classroom and up the rigor and interaction by STEMifying them. Science labs already have the

TAKEAWAYS:
Different strategies to incorporate technology, engineering and math into a science lesson to stemify the lesson.

SPEAKERS:
Selene Verhofstad (Dobie High School: Houston, TX), Faryal Shaukat (Dobie High School: Houston, TX)

For 90% of Earth history, there was no fire. Fire made humanity and civilization. Now fire so endangers us that we must repower without flame. Energy system transitions make history. What can we learn from past transitions? What does the future hold? Can we reframe how we talk about climate change?

TAKEAWAYS:
In climate change education efforts, we should talk more about fire as it’s both the root cause of modern climate change and was effectively nonexistent for the first 90% of Earth history. This reframing helps people see the issue in a new light, and has the potential to engage broader audiences.

Explore a new online, teacher-developed STEM curriculum focused on sustainability. Through the storyline of a virtual study tour of Germany, students explore sustainability from multiple perspectives with the goal of empowering students to apply STEM to sustainability in their own communities.

TAKEAWAYS:
Germany is a leader in innovative STEM solutions to critical global sustainability issues related to food production, waste management, renewable energy, climate change, and ecosystem management. Lessons from Germany can inspire student-led local action.

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

Have you wondered how to teach the Nature of Science in an engaging way? Do you know that there are free accessible websites to help. Come see how a few simple activities that allow students to access the other dimension of the NGSS standards.

TAKEAWAYS:
Come away with free resources of Nature of Science activities. In addition learn the backed research principles that make this dimension of NGSS vital for scientific literacy.

SPEAKERS:
Kelly Mulligan (Bridgeport Public School: Bridgeport, NE)

NSTA provides a wide array of professional learning services for teachers, science specialists, and administrators.

TAKEAWAYS:
Learn how to bring NSTA professional learning services to your school, district, or organization (face-to-face, virtual, and hybrid).

SPEAKERS:
Michelle Phillips (NSTA: Arlington, VA)

This session will provide educators with ideas for hosting STEM day/night for K-8 students (especially in Title I schools). Attendees will participate in hands-on STEM challenges that explore phenomena, require minimal preparation, and can be completed in 45 minutes or less. Educators will walk away with packets that include posters, supply lists, rubrics, and worksheets. This session will help attendees to facilitate and model simple Engineering Design Challenges that will engage ALL scholars.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn how to coordinate a STEM day/night including scheduling ideas, resources. Attendees will receive packets for their respective grade levels/grade bands that include posters, supply lists, rubrics, and worksheets.

SPEAKERS:
Karelle Williams (The Main Street Academy: Atlanta, GA)

Using a quantitative research design, we examined the relationship between students’ years of high school study in STEM courses and their retention in STEM college majors, racial differences in high school STEM courses taken, and racial differences in college STEM retention.

TAKEAWAYS:
Our findings showed that Black and Latinx STEM undergraduate students tend to leave their STEM majors at higher rates and take less high school Physics and Chemistry courses than their Asian American and White peers.

SPEAKERS:
Peter Cho (Student), Young Kim (Professor: Azusa, CA)

Come learn about co.lab, an interdisciplinary course designed by Leyden teachers that includes Biology, Global Studies, English, Health/PE and Digital Literacy. Discover how we use our 4 period block of time in a traditional school day to reimagine how students learn and teachers collaborate.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will walk away from this session feeling inspired to collaborate within and outside of their departments, with ideas and strategies on how to do so. They'll learn the power of exhibiting student work, and hear new ideas on how to do so on a grander scale.

SPEAKERS:
Jamie Litzhoff (Leyden High School District 212: Franklin Park, IL)

Teachers will hear about the EPA Gulf Guardian Award winning curriculum that teaches students about climate change. A Classroom Course in Community Resilience uses scientific problem-based learning to promote environmental stewardship.

TAKEAWAYS:
TThe human effect on the climate is evident in many ways, and today's students will be future leaders. Our program equips teachers with lessons that are easily implemented into their existing coursework and empowers students to think outside the box and creatively solve climate-related issues.

SPEAKERS:
Samantha Capers (USM Marine Education Center: No City, No State)

The Human Evolution Lab Suite (HELS) is a collection of select labs that supplement existing biology curricula. The very best fossil, physiologic, behavioral, and genetic evidence is woven together to produce a compelling confluence of evidence for hominid (human) evolution.

TAKEAWAYS:
The Human Evolution Lab Suite (HELS) is a set of labs that features the most compelling and student-accessible evidence for human evolution, designed for user-friendly delivery by an instructor with the help of open access lesson plans and tools.

SPEAKERS:
Chris Bayer (Co-Founder, AncientAncestors.org: Feucht, Germany)

A former national science fair judge provides insights on how good titles can improve the odds of winning at science fairs. The poster will describe what the parts of a "good" title are and how teachers can help your students create one.

TAKEAWAYS:
Teachers will learn the components of how to create a good project title (from a research project on science fairs) and how to help their students develop a good title for their own project that is structurally similar to those used by scientists to describe their own research at conferences.

SPEAKERS:
G. Michael Bowen (Mount Saint Vincent University: Halifax, NS)

Our outreach program leveraged the 5E instructional model to deliver an authentic laboratory experience throughout underserved areas of our school district. Pilot results demonstrate significant gains in student learning and high interest in repeat opportunities.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will be able to identify successes and struggles experienced in the implementation of a district wide STEM outreach program. Participants will take away a model of STEM outreach and an example lesson that can be easily implemented through a small team, even across a large school district.

SPEAKERS:
Emily Heath (Student: Warrenville, SC), Kamani Barnes (Student: Warrenville, SC), Javaris Lightsey (Student: Warrenville, SC), I'Layna Highsmith (Student: Warrenville, SC), Ny'Aja Clemons (Student: Warrenville, SC), Alexandria Martin (Student: , SC), Christie Palladino (Teacher: Warrenville, SC)

The effects of a Storyline approach was used in a High School biology class. A storyline focusing on the concept of ecosystem homeostasis was presented to students and compared to a traditional teaching approach. Results indicated that student content knowledge and attitudes improved.

TAKEAWAYS:
Storylines are effective teaching tool to help student learn science content through the lens of Science & Engineering Practices and Crosscutting Concepts.

SPEAKERS:
Shane Cullian (Whitewater High School: Whitewater, WI), John Graves (Montana State University: Bozeman, MT)

Climate change can affect us all differently but it is still the biggest threat to humanity on our planet. Learn how engaging in STEM projects can elevate student voices and hope for the future through climate action.

TAKEAWAYS:
Get ideas of how to incorporate STEM projects while teaching Climate Change and Environmental Science.

SPEAKERS:
Stacy Thibodeaux (Southside High School: Youngsville, LA), Jessica Kohout (Educational Consultant: Voorhees, NJ)

Planet Lamron is a new way to teach biomes and renewable energy in environmental science. Using climate graphs from an earlier mission to the distant earthlike planet, students will determine the biomes present. From there, students will decide where to colonize and how to set up energy plants.

TAKEAWAYS:
Conference attendees will learn to use Planet Lamron to teach the concepts of biomes and renewable energy in environmental science. Students will learn to interpret climate graphs, make decisions about where to colonize based on biome, and how/where to set up renewable energy plants.

SPEAKERS:
Victoria Myers (Teacher: Alpharetta, GA)

Our High School Committee Poster will highlight the ways HS educators are creating a classroom culture grounded in Sensemaking for grades 9-12.

TAKEAWAYS:
What you can do tomorrow to flip your classroom so the HS student is the knower.

SPEAKERS:
Jodi Bahr (Harvard Public Schools: Harvard, NE)

"Believe you can and you're halfway there!" There's a lot of buzz about self-efficacy, but what does it mean for a science educator? Come discuss how practices that focus on self-efficacy for both students and teachers can impact academic achievement, goal-setting, and resilience in your students.

TAKEAWAYS:
Those that visit this poster will engage in conversation about what current research says about self-efficacy and K-12 science classrooms and will come away with resources to focus classroom practices on raising the self-efficacy of their students for performing scientific practices.

SPEAKERS:
Patricia Rushing (PhD Candidate: , VA)

Empower students to playfully explore science through food and cooking. Explore the theoretical underpinnings that support sensemaking in the classroom and practical avenues for facilitating equitable and accessible learning through food and cooking.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn how to authentically leverage food and cooking to make science concepts concrete in the secondary classroom which platforms individual student voices, experiences, and ideas.

SPEAKERS:
Kate Strangfeld (Harvard University: Cambridge, MA)

Paper is so commonly used for drawing and writing but it is amazingly versatile and easy to use for making 3-dimensional projects.

TAKEAWAYS:
You do not need fancy equipment to do STEM and hands on activities.

SPEAKERS:
Godwyn Morris (Dazzling Discoveries / Skill Mill NYC: New York, NY)

STEP UP is a national community that designs physics lessons to empower teachers, create cultural change, and inspire young women to pursue physics in college. Two lessons, Careers in Physics and Women in Physics, are freely available and supported by an online community of educators.

TAKEAWAYS:
STEP UP Careers in Physics and Women in Physics lessons show students how physics helps them reach their future careers goals. This poster will walk you through the lessons that aim to increase representation of women with physics degrees and shift deep-seated cultural views about who does physics.

SPEAKERS:
Nicole Murawski (Royal Oak High School (retired))

Students will present their work to make an interactive LED sculpture that displays different emotions when it senses the presence of humans. They soldered customized circuit boards and LEDs, made a 2D plot of different emotions of brightness and blink rate to inform their light patterns, coded proximity sensors, used refraction and reflection of light and borrowed ideas from biology and psychology to bring students together after pandemic isolation. The six columns of laser cut acrylic hang from the ceiling outside the theatre and form the constellation LEO which matches our lion mascot. While they practiced diverse STEM skills, the odyssey into the ambiguity made room for creativity which was uncomfortable for the students at first because no longer was there only one right answer to find. The resulting critical thinking and creativity are vital to solve the challenges and leverage the opportunities of the 4th Industrial Revolution.

TAKEAWAYS:
Creating a public display that requires STEM skills allows students to diversify their learning and increases the motivation for quality. Doing tech art helps develop comfort with exploring ambiguity along with the critical thinking associated with no one right answer.

SPEAKERS:
Ian Fogarty (Riverview High School: Riverview, NB)

In this project, teachers collaborated with Engineering professors in research on climate models and pavement distress. The teachers then translate that experience to inform PBL style class projects, with the goal of increasing student engagement and generating interest in career pathways.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn one way teachers may reach beyond traditional classroom walls to inspire students in fields relating to research, engineering, physics, and construction.

SPEAKERS:
Forest Shober (Physics Teacher)

How do we assess both DCIs and SEPs in a way that is not overly complicated nor burdensome, yet pedagogically sound? There is a clear way to integrate your course content without sacrificing an emphasis on the NGSS practices. You will leave with resources to implement this in your classroom!

TAKEAWAYS:
After outlining the current debate, attendees will examine several effective approaches to deal with both content and skills, while considering issues of equity, differentiation, and opportunity for students of all ages.

SPEAKERS:
Elise Naramore (Pascack Hills High School: Montvale, NJ)

Explore different handheld sensors that can be used to engage students in outdoor data collection. Students examine conditions across campus and consider implications during extreme heat events, then use evidence from data and maps to argue for school-based solutions to extreme heat.

TAKEAWAYS:
Gain ideas for using environmental sensors and data visualization tools to explore microclimates across your school’s campus. These ready-to-implement, authentic hands-on investigations prime students for learning about the heat island effect and the various solutions to address extreme heat.

SPEAKERS:
Emma Refvem (Durham Public Schools: Durham, NC)

The poster will highlight and discuss some of the valuable technology resources that played a key role in allowing teachers to provide students with an equitable learning experience during the pandemic and how they can continue to be utilized as we return to the post pandemic classroom.

TAKEAWAYS:
The poster will discuss strategies using tools such as Classkick, Gimkit, Blooket, and Edpuzzle to differentiate instruction in the classroom while encouraging persistence and achievement in students.

SPEAKERS:
Selene Verhofstad (Dobie High School: Houston, TX)

Modeling the multiple natural and human-initiated factors that impact global climate change can be daunting! A geoscientist and science educator will share a beta version of a climate change board game that is being developed as part of a National Science Foundation grant.

TAKEAWAYS:
This game provides students with a simulation of the causes and effects of factors that impact global climate. Participants will engage with the game and have an opportunity to provide feedback on the game elements. The game will eventually be offered as a free download.

SPEAKERS:
Kristin Rearden (The University of Tennessee, Knoxville: Knoxville, TN)

Make molecular and mineral crystal models using very simple units of origami. Then work as an individual or a group to bond the units together to make inexpensive & amazing molecular models for chemistry and minerals for earth science.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will create basic paper origami models that easily demonstrate mineral crystal structure, hardness, bond strength, & Cleavage/Fracture. Each person creates a unit, then groups bond units together to form crystals. Chemistry bonding modeling is also part of this session.

SPEAKERS:
David Ebersole (Greece Athena Middle School: Rochester, NY)

At arrival participants would receive a green or grey colored paper. They would then be prompted with the question, How would environmental changes impact the population of both green and grey colored insects? After brainstorming they would read and view some graphics on the poster of the “Impacts of Industrialization,” looking at how scientists have long studied how environmental changes impact organisms over time. Then, educators would participate in an online simulation, they would play as a bird and eat the moths in the simulation. Participants would then debrief their observations, hopefully finding that dark forest environment represented what the environment was during and after the Industrial Revolution. The light colored trees became dark and bare, due to the harmful effects of the pollution; this made the lighter colored moths harder to see and therefore gave them an advantage to survive. Poster facilitators would them help educators brainstorm other SS/Science connections.

TAKEAWAYS:
Educators will find unique ways that they can incorporate their science and social studies lessons more frequently and naturally.

SPEAKERS:
Jennifer Petersen (Professional Development Facilitator: Phoenix, AZ), Judith Lozoya (Professional Development Facilitator: Phoenix, AZ)

Free phenomenon based unit around chromatin remodeling! Organization of a meter of DNA into a 5-μm nucleus is an obstacle and a way that genes are regulated. Using free resources including a 3D cut-and-paste model, this unit explores how DNA is organized and how access to DNA is controlled.

TAKEAWAYS:
DNA is coiled around histones. Tightly coiled DNA is inaccessible to gene reading machinery. Methyl molecules bind to DNA and block access to genes. Acetyl molecules bind to histones and improve access to genes.

SPEAKERS:
April Thompson (Lakeview Academy: Saratoga Springs, UT)

Explore what NSTA is offering online to support your professional learning needs.

TAKEAWAYS:
Learn about the variety of professional learning opportunities that NSTA has to offer.

SPEAKERS:
Michelle Phillips (NSTA: Arlington, VA)

Scaffolded unit of study— lake samples from local reservoir collected to find diatoms & classify them by shape. Students compare findings to research studies of lake sediment cores to infer how diatom biodiversity has changed in similar lakes over time to infer human influence on diatom habitat.

TAKEAWAYS:
Poster describes science & engineering processes applied by students as they attempted to answer the question—“How can diatom fossils tell us how humans have changed the land over time?”.

SPEAKERS:
Amy Telford (Salem Community High School: Salem, IL)

Applying design thinking, students, educators, and community members collaborate to solve issues facing our community.

TAKEAWAYS:
1. Encourage your students to engage in community partnerships to promote student learning; 2. Provide strategies to increase scientific literacy through socio-scientific issues; and 3. Facilitate an inclusive culture through student agency.

SPEAKERS:
Pamela Joslyn (Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow: No City, No State)

Grasses are important to biodiversity, geography, and human culture. Their diversity includes rice, corn, wheat, sugar cane, bamboo and more, and they cover much of Earth’s surface. Explore grasses on Earth@Home, a free online interactive resource for learning about the history of Earth and i

TAKEAWAYS:
Grasses play critical roles in our everyday lives, in landscapes, and in global ecosystems. Grasses on Earth@Home provides information on the diversity, evolution, and role of grasses in human society to assist educators in weaving information about these important plants into their courses.

SPEAKERS:
Don Haas (The Paleontological Research Institution)

Pop culture is a shared language between teachers and students. Discrepant events from movies, television, video games, and even TikToks can promote argumentation and meaningful collaboration and are a novel way to approach teaching a STEM curriculum. Using pop culture to draw even distal connections between this world and the classroom increases engagement and helps to make learning accessible to populations historically underserved in STEM. With a bank of strategies developed over years of integrating pop culture in the classroom, we will show how to add relevance and accessibility to the STEM curriculum. We will illustrate how to seamlessly integrate these strategies into existing lesson plans and allow time for audience collaboration and brainstorming on how to incorporate these ideas into their classrooms. Web resources will be provided that are constantly being updated to keep content current and relevant.

TAKEAWAYS:
Mixing pop culture amps authentic engagement and understanding for all learners, including the historically underserved, reluctant, and ESL students.

SPEAKERS:
Matt Brady (Atkins High School: Winston-Salem, NC)

These STEM projects can be completed in a science classroom, in a club or a camp with students in grades 6-12. This session will provide examples of how 2 teachers completed these projects both in and out of classroom instruction time. Come learn with us!

TAKEAWAYS:
STEM projects for any student to have success

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