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TAKEAWAYS:
Presenting a compelling phenomenon or design challenge requires framing a question and choosing material carefully. Building a storyline requires testing out a launch of a unit to anticipate student questions about it, and first identifying what students will figure out in each lesson of a unit before it occurs.

SPEAKERS:
Bill Penuel (: Boulder, CO)

Sponsoring Company: 3D Molecular Designs

What happens when you cook an egg? Is it possible to un-cook it? Investigate the characteristics of amino acids, the levels (and rules!) of protein folding, and how denaturing a protein alters its function, in an engaging hands-on modeling investigation using the Amino Acid Starter Kit ©.

SPEAKERS:
Mark Arnholt (3D Molecular Designs: Milwaukee, WI)

Sponsoring Company: STEMscopes by Accelerate Learning

Let’s explore several intervention strategies to help struggling students in STEM. Let's move beyond differentiation & scaffolding. Come learn proven intervention techniques to help students. Let’s modify our traditional outreach to connect with students so that they gain greater understanding.

SPEAKERS:
Margo Dye (Accelerate Learning Inc.: Houston, TX)

Sponsoring Company: Edvotek

There’s a break-in at the lab. Your students become forensic scientists as they walk into a crime scene. Analyze samples for blood and then catch the criminal with DNA fingerprinting. This exciting workshop will include ways to incorporate biotechnology and gel electrophoresis into your classroom.

SPEAKERS:
Danielle Snowflack, PhD (Edvotek Inc.: Washington, DC), Tom Cynkar (Edvotek Inc.: Washington, DC)

Sponsoring Company: Vernier Science Education

Photogates are simple to use, but also have some challenging aspects. We’re here to help you unravel the complexities of these helpful tools so you can incorporate them into your curriculum. We’ll experiment with the laser gate, and we’ll discuss gate and pulse mode, different measurement setups, and more!

SPEAKERS:
Frances Poodry (Vernier Science Education: Beaverton, OR)

Sponsoring Company: NOAA

Learn to leverage freely available global data visualizations using NOAA’s SOS Explorer mobile application (available on Apple and Android devices and Chromebooks), and an observational technique used in art museums to increase critical thinking and time spent on visual and group thought analysis.

SPEAKERS:
Beth Russell (NOAA Office of Education: Silver Spring, MD), Hilary Peddicord (NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory: Lyons, CO)

Sponsoring Company: Milestone C & STEMI

This essential Foundations of Tech will provide an introduction to areas of new-age tech that are embedded in Industry 4.0, including design, robotics, and AI. Let's work together to make students developers, instead of consumers, of tech and STEM for their future and ultimately, career choices.

SPEAKERS:
Dave Conelias (Milestone C LLC: Shelton, CT)

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SPEAKERS:
Jessica Eaton (NSTA: Arlington, VA)

Sponsoring Company: STEMscopes by Accelerate Learning

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SPEAKERS:
Leslie Spaeny (STEMscopes by Accelerate Learning: Houston, TX)

Sponsoring Company: Vernier Science Education

Spark your students’ curiosity and prepare them for high school–and the world beyond. Learn how to introduce concepts to your students using the Go Direct Temperature Probe to measure the temperature of the palm of their hand, discover the reflectivity of various colors with the Go Direct Light and Color, measure sliding friction with the Go Direct Force & Acceleration Sensor, and determine the power of their grip with the Go Direct Gas Pressure.

SPEAKERS:
David Carter (Vernier Science Education: Beaverton, OR)

Sponsoring Company: Edvotek

The gene-editing tool CRISPR is one of the most exciting biotechnology breakthroughs of the past decade. In fact, this technique won the Nobel Prize in 2020! In this hands-on workshop, we’ll explore CRISPR biology using fast, easy experiments that model the development of a cure for Cystic Fibrosis.

SPEAKERS:
Danielle Snowflack, PhD (Edvotek Inc.: Washington, DC), Tom Cynkar (Edvotek Inc.: Washington, DC)

Sponsoring Company: miniPCR bio

Link physical science concepts like circuits and charged particles to the essential biotech method, gel electrophoresis. Build a reusable gel electrophoresis system with the Bandit STEM Electrophoresis Kit, and use it to separate colorful dyes. Also, add the A to STEAM with creative pipetting art!

SPEAKERS:
Kristin Hennessy-McDonald, PhD (miniPCR: Cambridge, MA)

Sponsoring Company: Adventerra Games North America LLC

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SPEAKERS:
Sue Mundell (Adventerra Games North America LLC: No City, No State), Bryan Mundell (Founder), Lauren Kelly (Crowley ISD: Fort Worth, TX)

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SPEAKERS:
Jessica Eaton (NSTA: Arlington, VA)

To analyze data from space and ground-based telescopes, scientists rely on computers, not only to do calculations, but also to change numbers into images. Scientists and programmers go through painstaking calibration and validation processes to ensure that computers produce technically correct images. Visual representation of X-ray data, and radio, infrared, ultraviolet, visible, and gamma, involves the use of representative color techniques where colors in the image represent intensity, energy, temperature, or another property of the radiation. This activity creates models from numerical data. Each model will be unique, depending upon how the photon intensity and energy data was processed – binned and assigned color values – and then analyzed. Artistic representations of this data will be made "by hand" and also by using web-based js9 imaging and analysis software. This is one step in allowing students to do their own astronomy research using real data sets.

TAKEAWAYS:
Scientists learn about astronomical objects from the light they produce. Colors in images are based on data from this light and are used to highlight different features.

SPEAKERS:
Pamela Perry (Lewiston High School: Lewiston, ME)

This lesson focuses on radio astronomy data collected with a $50 student-built telescope. The telescope is not needed to do the lesson. Students collect information on the locations of neutral hydrogen. Easy to do and a primary focus of radio astronomy. The data collected can be used in the classroom to teach lessons on the Doppler Effect, Wave behavior, galactic velocity curves, and effects of gravity as well as other science topics. Many physics concepts can be taught in a highly engaging way by studying the concepts found in astronomy. Doppler effect, rotational motion, wave behavior, the EM spectrum are examples. The challenges to doing such lessons is the high cost of the telescopes and the challenges of collecting astronomy data during daylight hours. Plans for building and operating the radio telescope will be provided. Lesson plans for teaching the Doppler Effect via Red Shift/Blue Shift and for teaching how to work with galactic velocity curves will be included.

TAKEAWAYS:
Radio astronomy is done during class time as radio wave detection is not affected by daylight. Students will learn about the unique nature of galactic rotational behavior as compared to circular motion and planetary motion under Kepler’s Laws.

SPEAKERS:
John Clark (Volusia Online Learning: Port Orange, FL)

Sponsoring Company: 3D Molecular Designs

Give your students a deeper understanding of what is happening inside those tiny tubes during PCR, endonuclease digest, and incubation wait times through hands-on modeling. This workshop will feature the use of the Biotechnology Kit © and focus on plasmid ligation.

SPEAKERS:
Mark Arnholt (3D Molecular Designs: Milwaukee, WI)

Sponsoring Company: STEMscopes by Accelerate Learning

Students get engaged with practical and inquiry-based engineering experiences by using the DIVE-in method. This program was developed with the New York Hall of Science. Transform your classroom into an authentic makerspace with the DIVE process. Learn how to use the design process through consensus.

SPEAKERS:
Margo Dye (Accelerate Learning Inc.: Houston, TX)

Sponsoring Company: Carolina Biological Supply Co.

Participants use the lactase enzyme to produce lactose-free milk in an easy-to-perform lab and then modify experimental conditions to design and test their own procedures to maximize production of lactose-free milk.

SPEAKERS:
Laurie Nixon (Watauga High School: Boone, NC)

Sponsoring Company: Vernier Science Education

Let us shed light on guided-inquiry lessons for your classroom. We’ll walk you through guided-inquiry simple circuit lessons, with attention to both the student experience and the teacher's view. You’ll be able to customize the lessons to feature the sensors and software you already have!

SPEAKERS:
Frances Poodry (Vernier Science Education: Beaverton, OR)

Sponsoring Company: DoD STEM

Department of Defense STEM scientists and engineers are the bedrock of our nation’s most advanced technology and research breakthroughs, including virtual reality, autonomous vehicles, and more! Join us as we explore multiple STEM career pathways supported by DoD STEM’s network of partners in academia, industry, not-for-profit, and local/federal government.

SPEAKERS:
Dr. Marquis Mason (RTI International: Research Triangle Park, NC), Dr. Whitney White (RTI International: Research Triangle Park, NC)

Sponsoring Company: Edvotek

Explore the science of candy colors! We will extract food dyes from candy and separate them using agarose gel electrophoresis and paper chromatography. By separating the different colors, students learn about complicated mixtures, charges on molecules, and how science relates to everyday life.

SPEAKERS:
Danielle Snowflack, PhD (Edvotek Inc.: Washington, DC), Tom Cynkar (Edvotek Inc.: Washington, DC)

This will give information that will enable participants to replicate a STEM outreach event with various theme ideas. The activities are all low-cost and adaptable across student ages and generations of family members. The activities are meant to provide opportunities for students and families to experience success in a fun and enriching way while engaging with STEM concepts from the NRC K-12 Framework. We will also discuss how we used this event as a way for our preservice teachers to experience and practice implementing informal education strategies. This event was hosted at our local STEM Center, but we will also discuss ways that it can be implemented at school STEM nights, at community events, or even as neighborhood "pop-up" events to reach diverse learners in equitable ways.

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:
Kelly Moore (Tennessee Tech: Cookeville, TN)

Participants will use light curve graphs and image analysis software tools located on the web to investigate stellar objects at the centers of supernova remnants, and determine if the objects are white dwarfs or neutron stars. Two sets of data from the Chandra X-Ray public archive will be used to plot brightness versus time to determine the rate of rotation of the object. Centripetal acceleration and Newton's Universal Law of gravitation calculations will then be applied. This activity is designed for physics and/or astronomy classes and integrates STEM analysis tools with the crosscutting concepts, physical science core disciplinary content and engineering concepts embodied by NGSS. Students may also use tools learned in this activity to use js9 to do further research projects using publicly available astronomy data sets.

TAKEAWAYS:
Light curves generated from web-based js9 image analysis software can be used to determine the period of rotation and identify objects as white dwarfs or pulsars using Newton’s Universal Law of gravitation and centripetal acceleration calculations.

SPEAKERS:
Pamela Perry (Lewiston High School: Lewiston, ME)

In Oklahoma, The University of Central Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University are working to prepare future STEM teacher/leaders by integrating Science Olympiad volunteering into each institution's pre-service teacher (PST) education programs. With partial funding through a grant from the Science Olympiad USA Foundation, the teacher education programs are partnering with the Oklahoma Science Olympiad (OKSciOly) to provide PSTs who serve as peer-mentors to OkSciOly member schools and Event Supervisors for OKSciOly tournaments as a part of their science education program expectations. The program goals are supported by prior studies that indicate that such a program could be associated with improving PSTs’ confidence, increasing opportunities for practicing skills in planning and assessment, and supporting intrinsic motivation associated with coaching Science Olympiad. We will describe the development and activities, and what we learned from PSTs and member schools about the experience.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn how Universities and Science Olympiad can increase STEM education support to local schools and develop capacity within their pre-service teacher candidates to use Science Olympiad’s high quality, NGSS aligned science, math, and engineering experiences with their future students.

SPEAKERS:
Bob Melton (University of Central Oklahoma: Edmond, OK)

As teachers, it is important for us to understand how the brain works when students are learning. Brain science research has not been easy to transfer to the classroom setting