Hear from middle school educators about the resources and tools they have used to develop a community of collaborative learners. They will share ideas for hands-on manipulative learning experiences and building scientific literacy skills.

Making Salsa = Making Connections!
How can making salsa help you grow your classroom community? This session will describe an engaging activity that was educational and impactful in many different ways. Students dehydrated and rehydrated salsa recipes so astronauts on the ISS could enjoy some flavorful food.

Meaningful CER in Physical Science
Exploration on developing more in-depth Claim Evidence and Reasoning investigations in Physical Science. Now that the Milestone EOC has been removed from this course, learn more about diving deeper into content will support students' scientific literacy.

SPEAKERS:
Kathy Biernat (Zanilu Educational Services, LLC: No City, No State), Stephanie McDonald (Teacher: , GA), Aliyah Johnson (Alpharetta High School: Alpharetta, GA)

Join middle school educators as they share strategies for supporting students to develop questions, writing of lab reports, and the development of time management skills.

A better way to do middle school lab reports
One challenge that we face as science teachers is the dreaded lab report. How do we teach the scientific method with such diverse classes, without it being too overwhelming? I have a strategy that has worked well with middle school students to introduce lab reports, and I will share the template.

Time Management Techniques for the Science Classroom
Are your students disorganized with labs/activities not getting completed? Do you find that sensemaking activities are taking more time than expected? This session presents time management techniques to support students efficiently using class time.

Effectively Engage Students in the SEP Asking Questions with the Question Formulation Technique
Participants will engage in an effective instructional strategy, the Question Formulation Technique (QFT), to help students develop explanatory questions to investigate phenomena.

SPEAKERS:
Kyla Corelli (Atlanta International School: Atlanta, GA), Alison Seymour (Science Teacher: Winchester, 0), Rebecca Garelli (Arizona Science Teachers Association)

Join these middle school educators as they share strategies to support students in modeling their ideas in the classroom.

Model Your Anchor Phenomenon Early and Often: A Strategy for Sensemaking
1. Have students make an initial model based on prior knowledge and assumptions about the natural world. *Predict. Wonder. Be wrong!* 2. Dedicate time for students to continually revise their models as they acquire more evidence and content understanding. 3. Watch the lightbulb turn on!

Read Alouds: Developing Literacy and Thinking Skills in Science
Read-alouds are a valuable strategy for introducing nonfiction text, articles, and current events to students that can also promote deeper understanding, higher-level thinking, and increased engagement. Learn how to prepare and implement read-alouds in your science class.

Flippity: A go to versatile tool to increase engagement
Flippity can "easily turn Google™ spreadsheets into flashcards and other cool stuff." This session will highlight three go to interactives to increase student engagement with one another and with content. Consider bringing a device to practice creating one or two of these cool things. Hacking the Secret Garden with 3D eLearning Experiences Elementary preservice teachers and students hack the science of school gardens and digitally present details of garden-based phenomena that meets NGSS 3D learning.

SPEAKERS:
Allison Wise (American Community School of Abu Dhabi: Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates), Jeff Thomas (University of Southern Indiana: Evansville, IN)

The pandemic has dramatically altered our students, and therefore our classrooms and teaching have had to adjust as well. In this share-a-thon, the 2020 class of STEM Scholars will share what we have learned and how we have changed as a result of pandemic teaching. We will share our struggles, our miserable failures, our innovative ideas, as well as our successes. We are a diverse set of teachers from throughout the country, so all participants will be able to relate and learn something that can be imeediately applied in their own classrooms.

TAKEAWAYS:
1. Discover new ideas, lessons, and projects that you can use in your middle school classroom; 2. Network with other middle school teachers from around the country; and 3. What lessons have we learned through pandemic teaching, how has it changed us and our students.

SPEAKERS:
Tammy Bartlett (Dinwiddie Elementary School: Dinwiddie, VA), Katie Lee (Cockrill Middle School: McKinney, TX), Patrick Marti (Villa Academy: Seattle, WA), Erin Lange (Surfside Middle School: Panama City Beach, FL), Rob Jackson (Seaman Middle School: Olathe, KS), Amanda Huff (Christian County Middle School: Hopkinsville, KY), Allison Bogart (Stonecreek Junior High: No City, No State)

Are you a middle school educator looking for inspiration? Join these educators as they share resources and strategies on using food and cooking in the STEM classroom, student-led mentorship in STEM classrooms, and learn how to use PolyDensity bottles to investigate concepts in the physical science classroom. Implementing STEM Kits to Improve Recruitment and Retention of Underrepresented Communities in Engineering Student-led mentorship programs can be fantastic early intervention tools that can be implemented in a variety of learning settings. Here we share a STEM Kit that high school mentors use with middle school mentees to improve recruitment and retention. Tinkering with Food & Cooking to Explore Science Purposefully Learn how to leverage food and cooking to encourage tinkering and sensemaking to make your secondary science curriculum engaging, meaningful, visual, and “sticky” (literally and metaphorically). Free resources (& lesson plans) included. Poly-density Bottles DIY for Inquiry I will share how to create your own cool polydensity bottles and use them for student inquiry activities that relate to many topics including density, molecular properties, and solubility.

SPEAKERS:
Claire Abrams (Student Intern: Washington, DC), Kimberly Jacoby Morris (STEM Program Coordinator), Kate Strangfeld (Harvard University: Cambridge, MA), Kelly Moore (Tennessee Tech: Cookeville, TN)