Science writing is an essential part of authentic science. However, both perception and reality suggest that science texts of various genres are difficult and challenging for many students. What can a teacher do to help students meet challenges so that they can realize the beauty and significance of pivotal works in the history of science, groundbreaking contemporary research, and the deep reflections found in scientific creative non-fiction? In this workshop we will try out techniques based on cooperative groups who create graphic narratives and lay summaries. An assortment of texts will be available to explore, like the concluding paragraph to Darwin’s Origin of Species and the story of Carbon by Primo Levi. Experience in the classroom will be shared where understanding of the texts is achieved by students, including reluctant readers and English language learners.

TAKEAWAYS:
Great, significant, and sometimes difficult written works in science can become accessible to students through cooperative groups, graphic narratives, and lay summaries.

SPEAKERS:
Richard Frazier (retired)

Participants will experience using dialogue structures and literacy skills in the science classroom. Research shows that when students are engaged with the content and are allowed the chance to make sense of it for themselves, they will learn more. Participants will experience mini lessons that incorporate phenomena and showcase research-proven structures. Participants will be actively learning strategies that can be implemented in classrooms to increase visual literacy amongst students. Strategies include reading, writing, speaking, and graphing skills. Science examples will be modeled. There will be collaborative discussions on how these strategies can be incorporated into a variety of grade levels. Throughout these strategies, we will focus on the dialogue structures set in place to encourage all students to participate and use the academic language. Each of these structures focuses on the teacher being the facilitator of the learning, rather than leading the discussions.

TAKEAWAYS:
Takeaways include: 1. Identify how literacy and dialogue are an integral part in sensemaking; 2. Engage in examples of activities that integrate speaking, listening, and reading into the science classroom; and 3. Pick up tips to promote retention of vocabulary through scaffolding.

SPEAKERS:
Molly Niedens (Tays Junior High School: Katy, TX)

Mi-STAR is a program at Michigan Technological University dedicated to quality NGSS-aligned curriculum since 2015. We listen carefully to teachers and respond with support. One of the struggles teachers mention most often is in scaffolding students to write CERs and arguments. In our presentation, we propose an addition to the traditional template: the scientific principles, which are then combined with evidence in the reasoning statement. Later, we add another part: a space for using persuasive writing to construct an argument. We model activities from our 5E lesson throughout. Teachers collaborate to create CERs, and to evaluate arguments written by others. Then, they construct their own arguments using a productive talk routine and persuasive language prompts. Participants gain confidence in supporting students to construct explanations and arguments, as well as get first-hand experience with a lesson, tools, and activities they can take back to their classroom for immediate use.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will leave with clear and concise definitions of reasoning, explanations, and argumentation, along with a lesson plan, activities, and templates to help students define and construct all three in the science classroom.

SPEAKERS:
Jenne VandePanne (Michigan Technological University/Newaygo Public Schools: Newaygo, MI), Chris Geerer (Mi-STAR: , MI)

Participants will experience the potential of teaching climate science through the lens of writing climate fiction. We will learn about the history of the science fiction genre as well as the newer subgenre of climate fiction ("CliFi") and note key contributions to science through innovative and speculative thinking made possible through literature. Participants will experience a crash course version of a unit in which students write a climate fiction novella integrating NGSS and CCSS for Science and Technical Subjects which will spur their curiosity in what “could be” with regard to climate science solutions. Participants will dive into aspects of unit facilitation of the writing and reading processes and leave with a framework for K-12 implementation as well as publication pathways. This experience can be personalized to meet student need through Universal Design for Learning strategies.

TAKEAWAYS:
Through implementation of a climate fiction writing unit, teachers can introduce skills and habits of mind that support youth innovation in addressing climate issues.

SPEAKERS:
Erin Lark (Kognity: Stockholm, 0)

How do populations fluctuate in the Hudson River ecosystem, and how do these changes affect the larger ecological community? Using data and hands-on investigations, we will explore how food webs and the abiotic resources have changed in response to the zebra mussel invasion. Teachers will get a lesson explaining how the zebra mussel invasion affected the food web of the Hudson River and be able to explain at least two connections within the food web that were affected using evidence from provided data. Data will include charts and graphs that depict organisms commonly found in the Hudson. When utilizing this lesson in the classroom, students will know what lives in the Hudson River, and will be able to create & study a food web drawing to represent the organisms living in the river. They will also know that the Hudson River food web is changing in response to the zebra mussel invasion, and will be able to make predictions about how native organisms will be affected by this invasion.

TAKEAWAYS:
Teachers will get a lesson explaining how the zebra mussel invasion affected the food web of the Hudson River and be able to explain at least two connections within the food web that were affected using evidence from provided data.

SPEAKERS:
Karen Pennywell (Cardiff Junior High School: Katy, TX), Sandra Rodriguez (Katy ISD: Katy, TX)

The session will open with having participants work through pieces of Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 from Once Upon a Physical Science Book. We will play with marbles to explore inertia, read about inertia's effect on kids in a school bus, and write an explanation of inertia. Then we'll try out gumdrop wave machines read, an article on bat echolocation, and outline a short letter that students could write after doing the reading. Next, we will discuss the "shape" of the lesson we just worked through, called a literacy learning cycle. From there, we will look at several specific difficulties that arise for students when they are asked to read and write (expectations, background knowledge, and meaningful writing). These topics will illustrate why a literacy learning cycle is so helpful. Finally, we will talk briefly about how the Once Upon a Science Book series can serve as a resource for literacy learning cycles.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will be introduced to the literacy learning cycle format, in which hands-on work precedes meaningful reading and writing activities. They will see how this system works by participating in lessons on wave motion and inertia.

SPEAKERS:
Matthew Hackett (Delta Woods Middle School: Blue Springs, MO), Jodi Wheeler-Toppen (Author/ Staff Development: Atlanta, GA)

Mi-STAR, now also known outside of Michigan as Anchored Science, is a program at Michigan Technological University dedicated to quality NGSS-aligned curriculum since 2015. We listen carefully to teachers and respond with support. Consistently we’ve heard teachers request materials that will help them promote literacy in their science classrooms. In response, we’ve worked with West Ed's Reading Apprenticeship specialists and classroom teachers to develop both integrated instructional practices and optional reading support materials. Our literacy activities are designed with strategies to promote metacognition and model the text interactions of skilled readers for students of all reading levels. We’d like to share our journey, and also share some examples and templates for teachers to use in their own classrooms. Come see how this approach can promote literacy and equity in science.

TAKEAWAYS:
A selection of Anchored Science by Mi-STAR examples and templates for scaffolded literacy supports will be provided. Use them with your own texts in your classroom next week!

SPEAKERS:
Jenne VandePanne (Michigan Technological University/Newaygo Public Schools: Newaygo, MI), Chris Geerer (Mi-STAR: , MI)

Participants will be engaged in multiple strategies that include mandatory engagement and collaboration. Many of the activities also include movement. The strategies can be implemented the week they return in any classroom with any subject area. Activities range from a Tea Party (science/literacy) activity, card sorts, and data collecting.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will leave with a variety of strategies to engage students through collaboration and movement.

SPEAKERS:
Carol Moore (STEM West: CLAREMONT, NC)

The NGSS emphasizes practices including: 1) analyzing/interpreting data, 2) constructing explanations, and 3) obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information. Passive learning will not help middle school students practice these skills. But by giving students agency, ChatGPT, and proper scaffolding, teachers can incorporate such practices. This workshop will support teachers as they navigate through a scaffolded learning experience with ChatGPT. Attendees will discover that ChatGPT can be used to offload lower-level thinking skills and advance students into higher order thinking. For example, MS-PS1-3 reads: Gather and make sense of information to describe that synthetic materials come from natural resources and impact society. Students could use ChatGPT to gather the information and then analyze, evaluate, and construct explanations to make sense of the information. After one hour, attendees will have developed an NGSS-aligned activity using ChatGPT that they can confidently use!

TAKEAWAYS:
To be successful with ChatGPT in the science classroom, we need to give students agency. In this workshop, attendees will control their learning. They will develop a valuable idea for using ChatGPT in their class AND witness a fully different way of managing their class…by giving students agency.

SPEAKERS:
Walter Ryan (Retired Educator), Chris Turner (Chief of Staff: Rockaway, NJ), Denise Bressler (Chief Ideologist: Liberty Corner, NJ)

I'll share concepts and processes of learning from visual stories and walk teachers through my procedure of asking students to tell visual stories about their own observations, research, experiments, and other STEAM related experiences. Since communication of science concepts is vital, we'll start by doing it ourselves -- using prompts to draw and write, discussing the outcomes of three brief exercises, and anticipating how they could be used with students. My visual (of course!) presentation includes an entertaining and challenging assortment of visual story examples -- as well as an educator-created method for using storytelling on children with literacy issues.

TAKEAWAYS:
Visual storytelling is an exciting, fun, and effective way to communicate. It can -- and should -- join writing and science notebooks in student output -- and may make scientists of them.

SPEAKERS:
Karen Romano Young (Science communicator: Bethel, CT)

During this presentation topics such as creating language objectives, color-coding vocabulary, using graphic organizers to help further comprehension of content, and using the expert readers strategy will be covered.

TAKEAWAYS:
Various strategies for scientific literacy that are easily applicable to any science classroom such as using language objectives, graphic organizers, and color-coding key vocabulary.

SPEAKERS:
Mikayla Kagey (Central Kitsap Middle School: Silverdale, WA), Sydnie Chouery (Science Teacher: Silverdale, WA)

I would like to introduce and allow teachers to interact with strategies that I have used while teaching at a school that consists of at least 70% English Language Learners (ELLs). I have worked to compile strategies that support students' language development in all four language domains and in all science content areas. For developing reading, I have used stations with multiple means of representation, as well as interactive visual vocabulary activities to frontload vocabulary prior to reading a science text. For listening, I have used videos with pause points for comprehension checks, as well as note-taking while listening, to practice active listening. For writing, I have used sentence frames, single point rubrics, and visual vocabulary word banks to support student writing. For speaking, I have used questioning strategies, as well as organized systems, for student participation. These strategies have positively impacted language and content acquisition in my classroom.

TAKEAWAYS:
Strategies and supports that can be easily implemented in your classroom tomorrow no matter the lesson, content, or activity.

SPEAKERS:
Celeste Pistole (Guadalupe Centers Middle School: Kansas City, MO)

The Artemis Generation is the next generation of explorers who will push the boundaries of human knowledge and endeavor. To empower this generation, we need to expose them to STEM role models who represent diverse backgrounds and experiences. This exposure can help to broaden students' perspectives and show them that STEM is a field for everyone. Additionally, culturally responsive teaching strategies can help to create an inclusive learning environment for all students. This session will explore the importance of empowering students through equity and inclusion with the help of NASA resources on STEM role models, the First Woman graphic novel, and a STEM identity development activity. By the end of this session, participants will be able to: • Identify the importance of equity and inclusion in STEM education • Develop strategies for identifying and promoting diverse STEM role models • Apply culturally responsive teaching strategies in their classrooms

TAKEAWAYS:
Diverse STEM role models and culturally responsive teaching help all students succeed in STEM. By exposing students to diverse role models in STEM and using culturally responsive teaching strategies, educators create inclusive learning environments where all students can thrive.

SPEAKERS:
Monica Uribe (NASA Education Specialist), Dr. Sagirah Wheeler (NASA Education Specialist: No City, No State)

The session will open with having participants work through pieces of Chapter 11 from Once Upon an Earth Science Book. Participants (as students) will collect information from three models: (the Coriolis effect, major ocean currents, and how wind creates currents). Then they will read an article on the Pacific Garbage Patch and how its existence was predicted based on such models before it was discovered. We will outline a writing assignment in which they predict where a boatload of rubber duckies that capsized off the coast of Morocco might end up. Next, we will discuss the "shape" of the lesson we just worked through, called a literacy learning cycle. From there, we will look at several specific difficulties that arise for students when they are asked to read and write (expectations, background knowledge, and meaningful writing). Finally, we will talk briefly about how the Once Upon a Science Book series can serve as a resource for literacy learning cycles.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will be introduced to the literacy learning cycle format, in which hands-on work precedes meaningful reading and writing activities. You will see how this system works by participating in a lesson and come away with practical strategies for your classroom.

SPEAKERS:
Jodi Wheeler-Toppen (Author/ Staff Development: Atlanta, GA)

Although most people do not know a programming language, nearly everyone can read and write. The exposition of plain English text forms a critical part of logically explaining a set of operations and instructions, which are foundational to computational thinking and coding. The learning of programming concepts, such as cause-and-effect, abstraction, logical reasoning, etc., will be explored through each example exercise during the session. We will write a number of games together, guided by artificial intelligence, where each can be completed in just 10 minutes or less! The platform will automatically convert the text into a playable game. Games are engaging learning tools and are perfect for teaching many subject areas. The session will be divided as follows: 1. How to describe a game in English via Setting and Plot. 2. Basic game construct. 3. Pong-like games. 4. Space Invaders. 5. Mario-like games. 6. More complex variables/attributes. 7. Debugging. 8. Sharing games. 9. How to use Online Tutorials.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn to: clearly articulate programming concepts, think like a programmer, relate various aspects of each sentence to computational concepts and constructs, apply lessons to various subjects.

SPEAKERS:
Michael Hsiao (Virginia Tech: Blacksburg, VA)

The materials presented were created by two 8th grade life science teachers. Our students struggle with reading and analyzing nonfiction text. Nonfiction text is an important part of science literacy, and teaching our students how to interact with the text and pull important information is essential. The templates we created can be applied to almost any article or reading that teachers will use in their classroom.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will go away from this session with materials that they can use immediately in their classroom. These materials will help students to read and organize nonfiction texts and use them in discussions with classmates.

SPEAKERS:
Erin Branstetter (Bolivar Middle School: Bolivar, MO)