This presentation will provide teachers with a ready-to-teach Unit designed to help their students experience several Physical Science, Earth-Space Science, and Engineering NGSS standards. The unit addresses global weather patterns and the impacts of potential pattern changes. It also addresses thermal energy and its applications in building design. All middle school science teachers; whether new to profession, new to phenomena based learning, or seasoned veterans will find something new and exciting to bring back to their classrooms. This Unit combines my understanding of the middle school science classroom with expertise of curriculum writers at Pacific Education Institute. Teachers will receive help planning lessons, activities, and discussions. They will also take the role of a student to have first hand experience with labs and activities. Teachers will receive a digital copy of all of the instructional materials including grading rubrics.

TAKEAWAYS:
Teachers will learn how to teach and assess a dynamic 3-D unit addressing Physical Science and Earth Space Science NGSS Standards. Teachers will leave with editable access to all Unit materials. Teachers will get time and guidance on how to adapt the Unit to their classroom and student needs.

SPEAKERS:
Kat Chamberlain (Ridgetop Middle School: No City, No State)

Using the Disciplinary Core Ideas and a research-based “citizen science” approach, science educators contributed their own test items, and helped to revise existing test items in order to address crucial issues such as difficulty, gender, and racial/ethnic bias that were present in the item analysis characteristics. We share the analysis and results of these efforts so that educators can assess their own test items to be more inclusive of all students’ understandings in one of the dimensions of the 3D-approach to learning. Learn what changes contributed to improvement of the item as well as what types of changes or revisions made the item worse than before. We also share results of field testing of these items in student classrooms and discuss the importance of incorporating students’ misconceptions into the response choices to capture their true understanding of science concepts as outlined in the DCIs.

TAKEAWAYS:
Learn to evaluate assessment questions that you use to assess students’ sensemaking of elements outlined in the NGSS DCIs. Are the questions free of bias, not too difficult, indicative of overall student performance? Do they include common misconceptions that students hold? Utilize a free resource.

SPEAKERS:
Philip Sadler (Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian: Cambridge, MA), Cynthia Crockett (Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian: Cambridge, MA)

The workshop will provide participants with the following information and learning experiences: 1.) Where and when the solar eclipse will be visible, including how to find what will specifically happen in their location. 2.) Three-Dimensional learning strategies to use with their students to understand what causes both lunar and solar eclipses, including what causes lunar phases and how knowing what causes lunar phases is key to knowing when eclipses occur. 3.) How to safely observe the eclipse using a variety of observing strategies 4.) Suggestions for how to make the most of the eclipse as a school and/or community-wide event. 5.) What overall resources that NSTA has to help them make the most of this celestial event.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will come away with links to 3-D teaching strategies for students to understand the science behind eclipses, plus safe viewing strategies and ways to make the event a school-wide experience.

SPEAKERS:
Dennis Schatz (Institute for Learning Innovation: Beaverton, OR)

This activity has students/participants act as particles. To start, participants are given baseline information about how attractive forces between particles can vary from very strong to negligible, & that particles are always in motion. To model very strong forces participants link arms at the elbow, for moderately strong forces they hold hands, & for weak/negligible forces they can only hold each other’s pinky fingers. Participants start far apart & move very slowly to model a very cold temperature. At this speed, all of the participants are able to form an organized structure (solid). With each iteration the participants move faster. This results in the weak force group not being able to form structure (gas), the moderate force group being clumped together but not organized (liquid), & the strong force group still being able to form an organized structure (solid). Activity will then be modified to explain WHY gas law variables have the relationships they do (P,V,T, n).

TAKEAWAYS:
Students will not only know the properties of solids, liquids, and gasses, but will also be able to give in-depth explanations as to WHY the properties are different by behaving as the particles at different temperatures and with different attractive forces.

SPEAKERS:
Clark Ellis (The Kinkaid School)