In a 4-day summer workshop, teachers learned to fly a drone, completed STEM-based activities, and wrote an original activity to be presented to high school students. A computer programming efficacy scale, administered at the beginning and end of the workshop, quantified change in efficacy.

TAKEAWAYS:
The computer programming efficacy scale has five subscales. Survey results will be presented. Word clouds will summarize open-ended survey questions regarding comments for content that was learned, how activities can be used in an educational setting, and suggestions for workshop improvement.

SPEAKERS:
Deborah McAllister (The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga: Chattanooga, TN)

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)

Designing the solution that solves a real-world problem requires the application of knowledge and skills from multiple disciplines, as in STEM practices. Through the exploration of STEL and the EDP, students learn how to evaluate their design solutions based on constraints and criteria.

TAKEAWAYS:
Educators learn how to use performance tasks to measure students’ application of the knowledge and to assess individual student performance.

SPEAKERS:
Denise Clarke-Mayers (East Orange STEM Academy: East Orange, NJ)

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)

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)

Teachers will learn strategies to integrate picture books and STEM activities to support ELA standards, inspire student creativity and nurture a growth mind-set.

TAKEAWAYS:
Teachers will leave this session with resources and activities to implement in their classrooms. This will include a resource library of books and activities that support ELA and STEM standards.

SPEAKERS:
Jodi Eanes (John Sevier Elementary School: No City, No State), Alyson Colclough (Foothills Elementary: No City, No State), Bob Kirkland (Sam Houston Elementary School: Maryville, TN)

Science and mathematics faculty collaborate on preparing secondary mathematics and science student teachers to collaborate on a Social Justice Oriented STEM unit to integrate into their content courses.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will take away ideas for implementing a social justice STEM project for secondary mathematics and science student teachers.

SPEAKERS:
Mary Kay Kelly (University of Dayton: Dayton, OH)

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)

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)

NMLSTA is the ONLY science teacher association devoted to meeting the unique needs of middle school science educators. Members of the NMLSTA Board of Directors will be on hand to share a variety of information about the organization.

TAKEAWAYS:
You will learn about NMLSTA activities during this conference, specifically our Share-a-Thon, and throughout the year, including various awards available to our members

SPEAKERS:
Mary Lou Lipscomb (National Middle Level Science Teachers Association: Naperville, IL)

We engaged students in building computational thinking skills through the lens of science. Two lessons that will be featured include navigating a robot through a science-themed maze and coding a video game that integrates science. This model of blended science, design & tech will inspire you!

TAKEAWAYS:
This poster will describe and link to two lessons including navigating a robot through a science-themed maze and coding a video game that integrates science concepts of light and shadows. Computational skills and science content that are present in the lessons will be emphasized.

SPEAKERS:
Katheryn Kennedy, PhD (The Peck School: No City, No State)

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)

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)

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)

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)

Introducing students to real-world engineering problems is a key component to engaging them in the science classroom. In this project, students solve the problem of saving pets from a hot car. Many students are aware of this issue and would have many ideas on how this could be achieved. This projects gives them the tools to help solve such a problem by building a model and finding a solution. Participants in this session will get to build the model themselves to see how information from sensors (input) can determine what should be done (output) through simple lines of code. No coding or engineering experience is needed, just imagination and logical thinking. Projects like these can expose students to STEM Careers. The exposure to coding and engineering design can also get them interested in doing more in the STEM field.

TAKEAWAYS:
Solve a real-world problem with coding and engineering design - no prior experience needed.

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

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)

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)

Integrating engineering content and skills into elementary science classrooms is an important goal as evidenced by the emphasis placed on it in the NGSS. This presentation will provide teachers with skills and strategies for the successful integration of engineering content and practices.

TAKEAWAYS:
The main takeaway from this presentation is a set of tools that teachers can use to gain skills in the implementation of engineering content and practices in the science classroom.

SPEAKERS:
Robert Ceglie (Associate Professor)

Attend this session and learn how to incorporate little to no cost STEM activities from teachers who do it every day! You will learn strategies for selecting projects and materials that will engage your students and not break the bank!

TAKEAWAYS:
Teachers will learn strategies to incorporate STEM activities within their classroom for little to no cost and leave with lesson ideas to get their program started.

SPEAKERS:
Alyson Colclough (Foothills Elementary: No City, No State), Jodi Eanes (John Sevier Elementary School: No City, No State), Bob Kirkland (Sam Houston Elementary School: Maryville, TN)

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)

"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)

Science educators teach THE scientific method; while this is a tried-and-true practice, it doesn’t wholly represent all the different methods used by scientists. At UT Austin, college students are taught there are several scientific methods. We can teach science this way starting at a younger age!

TAKEAWAYS:
Students would benefit from learning more research methods from a young age! Expand students’ view of science, and introduce variety to maintain student interest. Hear ideas to incorporate methods into your lessons such as mathematical modeling, observational studies, and statistics.

SPEAKERS:
Rama Sreekantham (Paragon Prep School: No City, No State)

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)

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)

Creating primary and intermediate STEM-focused classrooms can be challenging. This session will highlight strategies and examples to incorporate both STEM and science activities into their classrooms. Resources that use trade books to teach Science/STEM concepts will be modeled and discussed

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will engage in example activities that make connections between quality children’s literature that support STEM topics, STEM investigations, and reading strategies.

SPEAKERS:
Christine Anne Royce (Shippensburg University: Shippensburg, PA)

In this session , I will model ways to make your elementary and middle school electricity unit light up! I will demonstrate several labs and display a cumulative project that you can assign to your students.

TAKEAWAYS:
The teacher will actively engage students in a tangible session regarding electricity.

SPEAKERS:
Amber Kersey (Henderson Middle School: Jackson, GA)

Learn about a great hands-on tissue paper hot air balloon STEM activity that can be done indoors year-round! Join Dr. Yemothy to learn about this easy and affordable activity that ALL students can accomplish. Leave having seen an example an gained an understanding of the activity.

TAKEAWAYS:
Knowledge of how to do the activity, ways to vary it, and understanding what is needed to do with students along with digital access to the hot air balloon STEM activity.

SPEAKERS:
Nicole Yemothy (K-8 STEM Educator & Trainer)

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)

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)

Are you looking for climate change lessons that provide strategies to engage middle school students? Activity-filled lessons will explore natural cycles and what can be learned from proxies.

TAKEAWAYS:
Activities involving natural cycles including the sun cycle, the carbon cycle, and seasons, as well as a variety of proxies and what they can tell us about Earth’s climate past and present will be shared.

SPEAKERS:
Karin Jakubowski (eesmarts: No City, No State), Kathleen Brooks (CREC: No City, No State)

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)

Our poster session will answer the following questions: What makes a good STEM Challenge? What types of supplies do I need? What happens if students are not engaged in the challenge? How do I assess the challenge? Our interactive poster board will answer these questions and more. Attendees can view videos of activities we have done to help students generate solutions to problems using the engineering design process. When they own it they will do it!

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will walk away with a STEM Supply list to use to create an unlimited amount of STEM challenges to encourage creative design and problem-solving. Many of the items on the list are free or very low-cost.

SPEAKERS:
Linda Gowen (Curriculum Consultant), Sue Bedard (iBuild Academy, Inc: ORANGE CITY, FL)

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)

Drawing on the experiences acquired in this international educational project, the poster will introduce participants to the concept of open schooling - its principles, benefits, and challenges. It will present the project's main objectives and showcase examples of activities designed based on the project principles and the actions completed so far, such as the co-creation of 16 Learning scenarios with eight pilot schools in the UK, Israel, Netherlands, and Poland, development the Open School Navigator for educators and conducting two rounds of pilots to test the learning scenarios and the Navigator with teachers. Finally, it will capture an example of the implementation of the Make It Open project and its future goals.

TAKEAWAYS:
The poster will introduce the Make It Open project based on the open schooling approach. It will give an overview of the tools and learning scenarios curricula developed by this project and showcase examples of how educators can implement them in their classrooms based on their community.

SPEAKERS:
Uttarika Shetty (Research Assistant), Tamar Fuhrmann (TC Columbia University: No City, No State)

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)