Part of an NIH Initiative, participants will engage in an interdisciplinary, phenomenon-based high school science unit composed of six 3-D lessons. Aligned with the NGSS, the lessons focus on viruses, wastewater, and public health, and aims to support students in making informed decisions about science.

TAKEAWAYS:
Engage in a series of interdisciplinary 3-D lessons on science, technology, and public health using relevant phenomena like COVID-19, water quality, & wastewater treatment. All supporting documents and activities will be shared with the participants. Examples of student artifacts will be showcased.

SPEAKERS:
Sahar Alameh (University of Kentucky: Lexington, KY)

The unique nature of this presentation leverages the extensive knowledge and experience of both a chemistry and a biology educator (who is also a research scientist) to show how teachers can use biotechnologies, such as DNA Fingerprinting and CRISPR Cas-9, to motivate student exploration while expanding their chemistry knowledge and inspiring them to pursue research. This topic is particularly important because CRISPR Cas-9 is at the forefront of medical breakthroughs such as CAR-T cell cancer treatments and gene therapy. Unfortunately, this topic has not yet been used to its full potential in the classroom. This presentation will raise awareness among teachers of how to explain and utilize biotechnologies in various ways. Specifically, this session will show how to use chemistry to explain CRISPR Cas-9 while emphasizing the six elements of life, functional groups, and macromolecules (using hands-on molecular models) to leverage sense making to explain these complex processes.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn how to excite students to learn and apply the chemistry necessary to understand the latest breakthroughs in biotechnology such as DNA Fingerprinting and CRISPR Cas-9. This presentation will showcase the crosscutting concept of systems and system models.

SPEAKERS:
Susan Allison (Dawson Education Service Cooperative: Arkadelphia, AR), Patrycja Krakowiak (Biology Instructor: Hot Springs, AR)

For the purposes of the STEM Share-a-Thon, NCSE will have two mini-stations set up to provide quick, meaningful previews of our evolution and climate change lessons. We will have a variety of student and teacher handouts ready to take home for immediate use in the classroom, and a variety of SWAG to help spread the word about scientific literacy and our evidence-based approach to NGSS storylining. The National Center for Science Education's mission is to ensure all students have access to a sound science education, regardless of societally contentious regional topics like evolution and climate change. Our lessons were developed for teachers by teachers and have been extensively field-tested over the past three years. As we are a non-profit organization, all our resources are free. For more information, and to check out the variety of lessons we will have available at the Share-a-Thon, go here: https://ncse.ngo/supporting-teachers/classroom-resources.

TAKEAWAYS:
Scientific literacy and critical analysis of verified evidence are more important than ever in the secondary classroom. NCSE has developed lessons to resolve common misconceptions encountered online and through social media. All resources are free, NGSS-aligned, and readily available online.

SPEAKERS:
Blake Touchet (National Center for Science Education: Oakland, CA), Lin Andrews (: Oakland, CA)

In this session, participants will experience part of an NGSS-aligned unit on wastewater testing and COVID-19. This six-lesson unit utilizing the 5E learning approach was developed through the collaboration of educators, engineers, scientists, medical doctors, and public health experts within an NIH-funded project. Attendees will participate in the fourth lesson of the sequence, entitled “H-Two-Poo.” Participants will first test the quality of different water samples to answer the driving question “how do you know if water is safe to use?” Participants will then learn about sources of wastewater, methods of wastewater management, and the development of a wastewater testing protocol to detect the presence of COVID-19. The experiences of high school students and teachers who have participated in the implementation of this phenomenon-based unit will be shared, including data from student surveys and handouts, along with photos of field trips to the community wastewater treatment facility.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will utilize science and engineering practices to collect and analyze water quality data. They will further learn how science and engineering have been used to develop wastewater testing techniques that inform public health decisions in our communities.

SPEAKERS:
Sagan Goodpaster (University of Kentucky: Lexington, KY)