Explore the NSTA Website with us! NSTA provides high-quality digital resources and opportunities—all within a professional community—that supports professional learning and classroom instruction. NSTA staff will be available to answer questions.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will become knowledgeable about the plethora of digital resources available on NSTA’s website, about the live events, and professional learning community that can help them enhance their knowledge and improve their teaching practices.

SPEAKERS:
Michelle Phillips (NSTA: Arlington, VA), Flavio Mendez (NSTA: Arlington, VA)

Sponsoring Company: LaMotte Company

Water is the single most valuable resource essential for life on Earth, yet is subject to increasing scarcity, pollutants, and overuse. The Tapwater Tour curriculum make the real-world connection between the phenomena explored in the lesson and actual hands-on laboratory activities.

SPEAKERS:
Joseph Evans (Kent County High School: Worton, MD)

Grounding in culturally-sustaining STEM as an asset pedagogy in context of an informal learning setting, we will focus on lessons learned in a Gullah community and share curriculum examples along with recommendations for culturally based STEM programs through the lens of our project’s stakeholders.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will (1) understand that within the STEM disciplines culture is a part of and embedded within underserved and underrepresented groups and communities and (2) identify ways to design and integrate community assets into project-based learning experiences.

SPEAKERS:
Fenice Boyd (Chair and Professorr: Columbia, SC), Regina Ciphrah (Verbalizing Visions, LLC)

Use your position to impact more teachers and students and actualize the NGSS vision. Success stories include: launching an NGSS-aligned curriculum, forming collegial circles, hosting administrator-focused workshops, and providing assessment resources.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will be inspired to form partnerships with formal and informal organizations supporting science education. Participants will hear success stories and receive electronic links to relevant resources.

SPEAKERS:
Harry Rosvally (Putnam Northern Westchester BOCES: Yorktown Heights, NY), David Jacob (Putnam/Northern Westchester BOCES: Yorktown Hghts, NY)

As education professionals seek to engage with Tribal entities to support Youth, they need resources to help ensure that they are stepping respectfully and intentionally. Learn about an Un-guidebook, supported by 100kin10, to help non-Native education professionals engage with Tribal entities.

TAKEAWAYS:
After this session, STEM educators will know more about building relationship with indigenous communities, and how both formal/OST, educators can use the Un-guide to create the first steps of a relationship with Tribal entities in their community and better support Tribal learners, especially youth.

SPEAKERS:
Kathy Hoppe (STEMisED, Inc: No City, No State), Melinda Higgins (U.S. Dept. of Energy - Fossil Energy & Carbon Management: Washington, DC)

Sponsoring Company: Carolina Biological Supply Company

Add excitement to your class with live organisms! Discover fun, simple hands-on ways to explore evolution, adaptation, and behavior in your classroom with a variety of insects and arthropods. Learn about care and handling, as well as easy ways to integrate Organisms and Environments standards. Addit

SPEAKERS:
Laurie Nixon (Chemistry Teacher: Boone, NC)

An introduction for teachers to free standards-based lessons focused on a diverse group of scientists who have made scientific breakthroughs and the positive role of science in our lives provided by #ScienceSaves.

TAKEAWAYS:
Teachers will become familiar with free resources to teach how science has benefited human outcomes with lessons focused on a diverse group of scientists, including teacher notes with curriculum standards, student response sheets, rubrics, and lesson plans.

SPEAKERS:
Amanda Clapp (The Catamount School: Sylva, NC), Alison Seymour (Science Teacher: Winchester, 0)

We share a free online toolkit based on our recent experiences building community partnerships intended to support development of STEM career pathways for youth in a rural mountain community. Learn how you might use these tools and strategies in your own community.

TAKEAWAYS:
Learn how to build a network of community partnerships that can support efforts to increase youth interest in STEM careers. This toolkit provides strategies and tools that you can use to develop a STEM partnership program that brings together students and STEM professionals from your community.

SPEAKERS:
Melissa Rummel (UCAR Center for Science Education: Boulder, CO)

Sponsoring Company: NOAA

Learn to leverage freely available global data visualizations using the SOS Explorer mobile application.

SPEAKERS:
Juan Pablo Hurtado Padilla (NOAA Office of Education: Silver Spring, MD), Eric Hackathorn (NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory: Boulder, CO)

The Informal Science Division is packed with professionals volunteering their decades of experience for NSTA. Join this open format meeting as the committee discusses future plans and ways that you can engage with them. You'll also have the chance to ask questions and find out how they can help you.

TAKEAWAYS:
Ways to engage with the Informal Science Division.

SPEAKERS:
Lindsay Milner (Mad Science Group Inc.: Montreal, QC)

Sponsoring Company: Edvotek

Creating colorful bacteria with transformation is a memorable way to teach the central dogma of molecular biology. Take it a step further and have your students create art with the colorful cells! In this workshop, we’ll share tips for transformation success and create bio-art with microbial paint!

We share an approach used to recruit and train STEM professionals in a rural community to engage middle school youth using programmable environmental sensors and 3D printing technology to design solutions to real-world problems. The result? Authentic connections to STEM careers in their community.

TAKEAWAYS:
Learn how a research team developed and implemented a model to increase middle school students’ interest in STEM careers through integration of STEM curricula using programmable sensors and 3D printing technology, STEM mentors from local community partnerships, and career focused activities.

SPEAKERS:
Melissa Rummel (UCAR Center for Science Education: Boulder, CO)

This session provides an opportunity for NSTA members to start an important conversation about the intersection of informal and formal science education. There will be a panel of informal educators leading the discussion and sharing success stories about meaningful formal-informal collaborations.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will leave with an increased awareness and understanding of potential synergies between informal and formal science education organizations as well as a better understanding of NSTA’s Informal Science Division.

SPEAKERS:
Karen Hays (Denver Zoo: Denver, CO), Julie Travaglini (Allegheny Land Trust: Sewickley, PA), Christine Moskalik (NSTA: No City, No State)

Our FlyGirls program was developed to introduce young women in grades 4–8 to aerospace using drones. The Cobb County School District has partnered with Lockheed Martin, FTW Robotics, female drone pilots from across the U.S., and other informal educators to offer our FlyGirls program.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will: 1. learn how to cultivate a dynamic partnerships between multiple agencies; 2. receive step-by-step guidance to start your own local chapter of FlyGirls; and 3. receive access to the resources we developed and used with our FlyGirls group.

SPEAKERS:
Alana Davis (Cobb County School District: Marietta, GA)

Want to strengthen learning experiences outside of the classroom? All teachers are welcome to participate in this workshop where we will practice field trip collaboration skills with experts from local informal science education centers. Opportunity for free treats from Atlanta area centers!

TAKEAWAYS:
In this workshop teachers will partner with informal educators to co-develop a plan connecting classroom learning goals with the educational opportunities offered at an informal center. Teachers will be equipped to leverage their educational expertise to better collaborate for their next field trip.

SPEAKERS:
James Ammons (Gwinnett County Public Schools: Suwanee, GA)

Partnerships between museums, PD providers, and coaches can catalyze partners' expertise and networks and build trust and buy-in to create positive change in STEM learning. NYSCI and NYSCATE will share lessons learned from a research-practice-partnership to improve middle school physics instruction.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn about forming and maintaining partnerships with different stakeholders involved in the professional learning process, catalyzing specific networks based on organizational expertise, and how to establish trust, shared leadership and ownership throughout complex partnerships.

SPEAKERS:
Michaela Labriole (NYSCI: Corona, NY), Linda Brandon (Consultant: Croton on Hudson, NY), Antonio Scordo (Coordinator Technology Integration and Curriculum Development: , NY)

Learn how GPS, seismometers, Lidar, magnetotelluric, and other geophysical instruments help to measure the changes in our environment such as groundwater fluctuations and drought, climate change, volcanic deformation, river evolution, sea level changes, vegetation height, and more!

TAKEAWAYS:
Teachers will be able to: Describe some of the applications of seismology and geodesy to a wide range of Earth and environmental phenomena

SPEAKERS:
Tammy Bravo (IRIS | Earthscope Consortium: Vancouver, WA)

Learn how, working with Latinx communities, we’re developing a conceptual framework for a strengths-based approach that guides development of new resources and messaging to generate interest in STEM. Iterative prototype development and formative research are part of the project.

TAKEAWAYS:
Ideas for exploring community-based effort to increase STEM opportunities and resources for Latinx and other youth.

SPEAKERS:
Shawn Stevens (GBH Education: Brighton, MA)

Are you looking to integrate science fiction (sci-fi) media into your science classroom? Travel with us as we share current research regarding individuals’ interest in learning science while attending “science tracks” at sci-fi conventions and how we can integrate sci-fi into the science classroom.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants attending this session will explore current research regarding the informal learning space of science fiction conventions and how these spaces and science fiction media can be used in formal science classrooms to support the learning of science.

SPEAKERS:
Gina Childers (Texas Tech University: Lubbock, TX), Rebecca Hite (Texas Tech University: Lubbock, TX), Kania Greer (Georgia Southern University: Statesboro, GA)

Community-based STEM (CBSTEM) programs, in this context, are school and organization-independent entities that were founded by local community members who recognized the importance of making STEM learning accessible to girls from populations that are traditionally underrepresented in STEM. This particular CBSTEM program is structured to leverage the financial and human resources of local businesses, organizations, and other community members, i.e., high school students. Middle school girls living in urban communities had an opportunity to engage in authentic STEM learning experiences, mentorship with STEM professionals, and exploration of careers. In addition to providing details about the structure of the program and how it functioned to extend the work of science practitioners, this session will explore how this CBSTEM program was able to pivot and evolve during the COVID-19 pandemic.

TAKEAWAYS:
The main takeaway of this session is to raise awareness about this school-independent community program and others like it that function to extend the work science practitioner do in classrooms.

SPEAKERS:
Marisol Jimenez (student), Vanessa Dodo Seriki (Morgan State University: Baltimore, MD)

Come learn about professional development opportunities that will reinvigorate your teaching, allowing you to see science happening around the world.

TAKEAWAYS:
Professional development can not only teach you new things; but can inspire you to see science happening in the world. Come learn about some of the opportunities.

SPEAKERS:
Victoria Obenchain (The Saklan School: Moraga, CA)

The International Space Station National Labs Space Station Explorers has over 25 programs that can help your students be inspired and engaged in real space science and research. As a non-profit organization we strive to bring educators free and low cost K-12 programs.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn how to become a Space Station Ambassador which will offer them free professional development, access to a community of STEM professionals and give them premier access to new ISS programs.

SPEAKERS:
Courtney Black (ISS National Laboratory: Melbourne, FL)

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.

TAKEAWAYS:
You will walk away with a practical toolkit of ways to use food and cooking in the classroom to facilitate a supportive and purposeful environment for tinkering. Participants will discuss and reflect on how to add and remove layers of scaffolding and support to differentiate activities.

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

The CDC Museum has produced a set of 20 free hands-on STEM Lessons centered around public health topics for middle and high school students. Attendees will review the lesson catalog and discuss how they can use them to broaden students’ understandings of public health.

TAKEAWAYS:
The CDC Museum’s STEM Lessons explore issues in public health using the engineering design process, scientific method, or public health approach to outbreak investigation. Learn more about how STEM and public health concepts can be used to improve critical thinking and communication.

SPEAKERS:
Emma Domby (Museum Visitor Experience Manager/Educator: Atlanta, GA), Trudi Ellerman (Education Director: Atlanta, GA)

Explore examples of successful collaborations on curriculum for grades PreK-12 between museums & schools and learn how to get what you need from your community partners.

TAKEAWAYS:
Learn how to best utilize your community partners to co-create comprehensive curriculum and experiences for your students.

SPEAKERS:
Tina Seidelson (Director of Student Engagement: No City, No State), Karyn Torigoe (Great Lakes Science Center: Cleveland, OH)

Celebrate Earth Day Every Day in and out of the classroom. Learn how to incorporate fun hands-on projects at your school to promote awareness of the need to protect Earth’s natural resources for future generations.

TAKEAWAYS:
1. Start a program at your school that celebrates the notion of Earth Day Every Day 2. Gain resources to start engaging in hands-on projects for your students that promote conservation. 3. Learn how to partner with local and national agencies to create projects for your students.

SPEAKERS:
Kristi Gnage (Science Teacher: St. Petersburg, FL)

Learn about an interdisciplinary research project that studied how atmospheric dust affects climate change. A team of educators collaborated with researchers to develop hands-on activities targeted at upper elementary through high school students that highlight science concepts from this project.

TAKEAWAYS:
Learn how a team of educators collaborated with paleoclimate researchers to develop activities targeted at upper elementary through high school students that explore how atmospheric dust affects climate change, highlighting how climate is influenced by complex interactions within the Earth system.

SPEAKERS:
Melissa Rummel (UCAR Center for Science Education: Boulder, CO)

Come have a BALL and put your own SPIN on how the game of Skee-ball is built and played so you and your students can save Skee-ball, too! This session provides an engaging, hands-on activity that explores physics and engineering through a “cardboard arcade” activity coupled with a fun storyline.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will identify relevant physics concepts related to building and playing a cardboard Skee-ball game through this FUN engineering project that is easily-adaptable for students across grade levels and settings.

SPEAKERS:
Christine Moskalik (NSTA: No City, No State)

Come learn how to host an Earth Day STEM outreach event for families! We will share activities, planning aspects, and implementation strategies.

TAKEAWAYS:
STEM Outreach events can be a way to engage students and families in equitable STEM learning to encourage and support all learners. This will provide information on how to replicate a STEM outreach event we hosted at our local STEM Center along with ideas about implementing it in different formats

SPEAKERS:
Jennifer Meadows (Tennessee Tech: Cookeville, TN), Kelly Moore (Tennessee Tech: Cookeville, TN)

New science curricula use effective pedagogy to provide young people opportunities to explore the prevalence and impacts of plastics, learn about emerging work on sustainable bioplastics, and plan authentic projects to help mitigate environmental impacts in their communities.

TAKEAWAYS:
How to use this new peer-reviewed curriculum to engage youth in environmental science and civic engagement.

SPEAKERS:
Martin Smith (University of California, Davis: Davis, CA)