In today’s fast-paced world, chronic stress is common, but your mind and body can pay a high price. Learn to recognize overwhelming stress—and what you can do about it. Most importantly, learn how to use the power of your senses to relieve stress on the spot and stay calm, productive, and focused—no matter what life throws at you.

TAKEAWAYS:
Tips on how to manage stress.

SPEAKERS:
Michelle Phillips (NSTA: Arlington, VA), Azra Chughtai (NSTA: Arlington, VA)

While it may seem like there’s nothing you can do about stress at work and home, there are steps you can take to relieve the pressure and regain control. Stress wreaks havoc on your emotional equilibrium, as well as your physical health. It narrows your ability to think clearly, function effectively, and enjoy life. Effective stress management helps you break the hold stress has on your life, so you can be happier, healthier, and more productive

TAKEAWAYS:
Tips on how to relieve pressure and regain control.

SPEAKERS:
Azra Chughtai (NSTA: Arlington, VA), Michelle Phillips (NSTA: Arlington, VA)

Harness the power of technology with student designed solutions for a changing climate.

TAKEAWAYS:
Use technology to expose students to coding and engineering design solutions for severe weather.

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

Join members of NSTA’s Professional Learning Committee to explore effective strategies and resources that focus on helping students make sense of data using the Crosscutting Concepts. In this session, you will have the opportunity to engage with the strategies and consider how to implement them with

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will leave with sensemaking strategies for engaging students in the Science and Engineering Practice of Analyzing and Interpreting Data, through the lens of the Crosscutting Concept of Patterns, that can immediately be implemented with students!

SPEAKERS:
Kimberley Astle (Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction: Olympia, WA), Rebecca Garelli (Arizona Science Teachers Association)

As Earth’s climate warms, the heat and humidity are rising, with major consequences for ecosystems. NASA scientists are tracking heat stress that can warn us of harmful conditions. Explore interactive inquiry-based lessons and participate in a heat island experiment.

TAKEAWAYS:
NASA provides free earth science resources and engaging interactive climate change lessons.

SPEAKERS:
Susan Kohler (NASA Glenn Research Center: Cleveland, OH)

Engage in a variety of activities, collect information and resources, and network with high school-level leaders. Discover new ideas and materials that you can use next week.

TAKEAWAYS:
The participants will network with other high school-level science educators and leaders to discover and engage in activities that will expand their knowledge and be usable in all aspects of their work.

Engage in a variety of activities, collect information and resources, and network with middle-level leaders. Discover new ideas and materials that you can use next week.

TAKEAWAYS:
The participants will network with other middle-level science educators and leaders to discover and engage in activities that will expand their knowledge and be usable in all aspects of their work.

NASA’s Artemis program will return humans to the moon. Practice computational thinking while including elements of a real NASA mission. Use the engineering design process to design, build, and test a foam rocket to understand the relationship between a rocket’s process to ability and its trajectory

TAKEAWAYS:
NASA STEM educational resources incorporate classroom strategies for implementing Engineering Design Challenges. Gain an understanding of how to integrate computational thinking into a standards aligned lesson.

SPEAKERS:
Susan Kohler (NASA Glenn Research Center: Cleveland, OH)

Explore how excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere makes water more acidic through hands-on activities from the free 5E lesson plans in middleschoolchemistry.com.

TAKEAWAYS:
Teachers practice using grade-appropriate explanations of the interactions of atoms and molecules to help students better understand the causes of the phenomena they observe and its connection to the problem of ocean acidification.

SPEAKERS:
James Kessler (American Chemical Society: Washington, DC)

Projections are that by 2050, there may be more plastic in our oceans than fish, leading to calls for a worldwide treaty restricting plastics. In this session, participants will explore new remote-sensing capabilities for monitoring microplastics from space and relevant STE[A]M+G educator resources.

TAKEAWAYS:
To offer participants resources and strategies for developing a STE[A]M+G Earth science unit that integrates problem-based learning (PBL), hands-on NASA student design challenges and cross-curricular material.

SPEAKERS:
Anne Weiss (Educator Professional Development Specialist)

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)

With the catalog of known exoplanets growing, NASA scientists are searching these worlds for signatures of life as we do (and do not) know it. In this session, participants learn through hands-on activities about NASA astrobiology missions that attempt to answer the age-old question: are we alone?

TAKEAWAYS:
To offer participants resources and strategies for developing an astrobiology [life sciences] unit that integrates hands-on NASA education activities, cutting-edge scientific research, and differing worldviews [cosmologies] that combine science, culture, art and storytelling.

SPEAKERS:
Anne Weiss (Educator Professional Development Specialist)

100Kin10 recently developed a bold new vision for the future of STEM education - to understand how to foster belonging in STEM. STEM Ed Innovators is a longtime 100kin10 partner. Our transformative community of practice for teachers, by teachers, and about culturally responsive and anti-racist teaching has fostered belonging in the margins for nearly a decade. In this workshop we will present research on STEM belonging and create a space to discuss what belonging looks like, sounds like, and feels like in a classroom, school community or district as well as in a school’s professional learning programs. Participants will work in affinity groups to identify ways to foster belonging for all students in the STEM classroom and for all teachers in professional learning spaces. Groups will share out and their contributions that will be memorialized so we can all look back on the learnings together after we return from the conference.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will develop an understanding of how instructional practices can create or hinder a sense of belonging in STEM and identify some teacher moves that can be used to foster a sense of belonging in the STEM classroom.

SPEAKERS:
Kelly Houston (STEM Ed Innovators: Saratoga, CA), Daniel Babauta (Sunset Park High School: Brooklyn, NY)

Moths play key roles in food webs, as pests, and as nocturnal pollinators. The MothEd Project invites students and teachers to investigate moths in local places by building blacklight traps, developing hypotheses, collecting and analyzing moth data in collaboration with others using a web platform.

TAKEAWAYS:
Teachers will prepare to engage students in science investigations of moth ecology by building blacklight traps, developing research questions/hypotheses, collecting/analyzing data from local habitats, and using technology-enhanced curricular materials to foster collaboration & agency among students

SPEAKERS:
Peter White (Associate Professor: No City, No State), Brian Keas (Research Associate)

Create large scale models and diagrams on a wide variety of subjects in open spaces both on inside floors and outdoors. Learn how to get the most out of your school building spaces and engage your students’ interests using inexpensive materials and kinesthetic activities!

TAKEAWAYS:
You and your students will learn how to make and use large scale models to explore many scientific topics. Using materials like electrical tape, sidewalk chalk, string and other simple materials, we will make and use large scale models of an ellipse, heart and body systems, cells, water cycle.

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

Forensics is a great way to engage students through hands-on, real world activities but some elementary & middle school teachers feel it is not age appropriate & struggle to affordably create relevant forensics units that meet their standards. In this hands-on session, teachers will see how forensics is fun for all ages! They will learn how to engage their community through a personalized, age-appropriate scenario that uses their community as the crime scene and suspects. Engage in blood typing, fingerprints, genetics, hair, fiber, handwriting analysis & chromatography. Students will learn how to think as scientists, to collaborate & ask relevant probing questions & collect, preserve & analyze evidence during the course of their investigation. Teachers will learn how to create a CSI escape room using Google Forms for remote & in class learners. Both hands-on & virtual activities encourage safe environments & social interactions. Leave ready to set the stage with their own crime scenes!

TAKEAWAYS:
How to use your school community to create an engaging crime for students to solve while encouraging socialization, collaboration, and critical thinking through blood typing, fingerprints, genetics, hair + fiber + handwriting analysis, chromatography, plus ways to create a virtual crime activity.

SPEAKERS:
Elizabeth Guzzetta (Our Lady of Mercy School for Young Women: Rochester, NY)