How do scientists study Earth’s historical climate? Are ice cores the only source of data? The fossil record can provide insight into cyclical changes in Earth’s climate. Teamwork, data analysis, and more scientific skills are used to analyze fossil data to study ocean temperature and level changes.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will receive hands-on activities that use fossil evidence which indicates changes in ocean temperatures and levels, showing fluctuations in Earth’s climate over time. Activities can be easily modified based on the needs of the teacher and grade level.

SPEAKERS:
Sabrina Ewald (The University of Texas at Austin: Cedar Park, TX)

The Question Formulation Technique (QFT), created by the Right Question Institute, will be explored in a hands-on, multidisciplinary, teacher-to-teacher training session exploring “How can we work together on creating more opportunities for all students to ask their own questions?”

TAKEAWAYS:
This session will give educators a proven and novel instructional strategy, and teachers who participate in the session will understand the mechanics of the QFT strategy, have experience practicing the QFT strategy, and obtain concrete examples of how to use the QFT strategy in their classrooms.

SPEAKERS:
Katy Connolly (Right Question Institute: Cambridge, MA), Maureen McGrail (University of Notre Dame: Notre Dame, IN)

Engage in hands-on learning! Explore wind energy's pros/cons and then design, and test windmills made with recycled materials. Take away a ready-to-use lesson adaptable for grades 4-12.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will leave equipped with a student-tested wind energy lesson, incorporating hands-on activities and collaborative learning, adaptable for grades 4-12, fostering a deeper understanding of renewable energy concepts aligned with NGSS standards.

SPEAKERS:
Lynn Kistler (Switch Classroom: Pittsburgh, PA)

What does it take to store CO2 underground? Discover how engineers determine where CO2 can be stored in subsurface geology by engaging in an engineering design challenge and learn how the energy industry is currently storing ‘captured’ carbon emissions.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn how the engineering design challenge can be integrated into AP Environmental Science, ESS, or Environmental Science courses and learn how it aligns with NGSS and APES standards. A document version and an online version are provided to attendees.

SPEAKERS:
Sabrina Ewald (The University of Texas at Austin: Cedar Park, TX)

This session on how to use EcoRise tools and your classroom and how to teach students to write successful EcoAudit grants.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn how to use resources available from EcoRise and how to empower their students to write and receive a grant for an environmental issue in their area.

SPEAKERS:
Cecelia Gillam (Benjamin Franklin High School: La Place, LA)

Participants will engage with a unit on climate change designed to be localized. They will use tools to brainstorm local anchoring phenomena and ways to make the unit relevant for their students, community, and teaching context. All materials are freely available.

TAKEAWAYS:
Climate change units should help students understand the impacts they are experiencing and prepare them to participate in solutions. Localizing students’ climate learning is one way to do that. Storyline design tools and resources can support teachers in developing this kind of localized learning.

SPEAKERS:
Candice Guy-Gaytán (BSCS Science Learning: Colorado Springs, CO), Betty Stennett (BSCS Science Learning: Tahoka, TX), Audrey Mohan (BSCS Science Learning: Burnet, TX), Lindsey Mohan (BSCS Science Learning: Burnet, TX), Emily Harris (BSCS Science Learning: Colorado Springs, CO)

STEM4Real aims to reduce absenteeism by involving students in solving real-world environmental issues through multidisciplinary projects that elevate high school senior's passion projects with the community and align their vision to service learning and environmental issues that drive the learning.

TAKEAWAYS:
Understanding that integrating service learning with environmental issues can significantly enhance student engagement and reduce absenteeism. By involving high school seniors in real-world projects that require civic engagement, educators can make learning more relevant and impactful.

SPEAKERS:
Neotha Williams (STEM4Real: Addis, LA), Jennifer Munoz (STEM4Real: Carlsbad, CA)

Are you looking for an opportunity to bring free hands-on engineering experiences to your students? The labs available work for biology, environmental science and physical science classes with cross curricular application in math.

TAKEAWAYS:
In this workshop, teachers will don their student caps as an engineer guides us through Engineering Tomorrow’s most popular lab - Phototherapy! Teachers will have an opportunity to register for this free program during this workshop and leave with a goodie bag of supplies!

SPEAKERS:
Marissa Maggio (Stuyvesant High School: New York, NY)

Case studies are powerful storytelling tools that captivate students and immerse them in learning scientific concepts in context. Discover how to leverage the case studies available through the NCCSTS that are freely accessible on the NSTA website and how to incorporate them into your classroom.

TAKEAWAYS:
Case studies offer various types and teaching methods, from intimate debates and clicker cases to Problem-Based Learning and jigsaw. This session aims to demystify the world of case studies, guiding you through their various forms and how to use them to enhance student engagement.

SPEAKERS:
Kathy Hoppe (STEMisED, Inc: Rio Rico, AZ)

Explore an extreme heat based phenomenon with the Understanding Global Change (UGC) framework’s modeling practices. Learn UGC practices and tools to help incorporate an Earth systems perspective into your curriculum and adapt existing resources.

TAKEAWAYS:
Experience the nature and processes of science by constructing explanations about a global change phenomenon with the Understanding Global Change framework and explanatory modeling practices.

SPEAKERS:
Alec Barron (UC San Diego)

Explore two museum-school partnership models that integrate best practices in outdoor and environmental education to connect urban K - 8 students to place-based learning through teacher professional development and direct student engagement both in the classroom and outdoors.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will dive deeper into the ways these programs allow schools to partner with cultural institutions, connecting them to resources and building teacher capacity through supported outdoor experiences, to connect K-8 students with the nature in their neighborhood and city.

SPEAKERS:
Melissa Siska (Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum: Chicago, IL)

Connect the human impact of trash pollution to engineering design. Get your students thinking critically and creatively as they collaborate in real-world problem solving.

TAKEAWAYS:
Experience a project that enhances STEM skills in students such as collaboration, curiosity, and creativity.

SPEAKERS:
Stacy Thibodeaux (Southside High School: Scott, LA), Jessica Kohout (Educational Consultant: Ellicott City, MD)

Learn fun and rewarding labs that can be completed in 50 minutes or less. These labs can be adapted to many different learning levels including; SPED, ESL, and gifted.

TAKEAWAYS:
You will get a list of Environmental Science labs that can be completed in less than 50 minutes. Plus complete a hands on lab that brings a bit of competition into the classroom.

SPEAKERS:
Rachel Melancon (Lafayette High School: Lafayette, LA)

A unique and open-ended STEM investigation that incorporates absolute and relative dating techniques, anomalies, historical context, volcanoes, solar proton events, energy cycles, Earth systems, terrestrial events, and supernovas by analyzing 430 years of Earth history from 1562 to 1992.

TAKEAWAYS:
In constructing knowledge, there is no definitive answer, only plausible conclusions based on constructing, analyzing, and comparing data and research from multiple disciplines. This investigation provides a better understanding of the scientific process of developing models and defending results.

SPEAKERS:
Donna Young (NSO/NASA: Laughlin, NV)

Connecting audiences to deep-sea habitats and the impacts humans can have on them is challenging. Creative hands-on activities, stunning videos, and talking to scientists at sea in real time brings an important ecosystem they may never see to them instead!

TAKEAWAYS:
After hands-on demonstrations of new, interactive educational materials and a viewing of highlights from livestream broadcasts, formal and informal educators and community leaders will leave the session with access to ready-to-use deep-sea activities for all ages, from “K to Gray".

SPEAKERS:
Sasha Francis (National Marine Sanctuary Foundation: Galveston, TX)

Engage in inquiry-based, hands-on activities to explore ecosystem interdependence and the impacts of human activities on environmental health and sustainability. Develop 3D models and graphs and take part in lively simulations, all matched to NGSS.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn ways to guide students’ inquiry around key environmental challenges, using hands-on simulations and modeling activities that employ 3D learning in an inclusive biology classroom.

SPEAKERS:
Sheila Lumod (Edna Karr High School: Harvey, LA)

ASSET, an NIH SEPA funded program at WashU STL, offers modules that nurture students’ innate curiosity through hands-on exploration of biology using safe, easily manipulated model organism, Tetrahymena. Modules are paired with FREE lending materials designed to stimulate inquiry-based learning.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will be introduced to ASSET and will conduct modified lab activities to see how ASSET can be used in the classroom to address topics like microscope use, cell parts and processes (phagocytosis & osmolarity), chemotaxis, and the effects of smoking, vaping, and alcohol on living cells.

SPEAKERS:
Courtney Hausner (Oakville Senior High: Saint Louis, MO), Anne Deken (John Burroughs School: St. Louis, MO), Alexandra Forgerson (Instructional Specialist: University City, MO)

Participants will use cell phone adapters and microscopes to capture photos/videos of microbes present in pond water, then Screen Mirror them via Apple TV. Participants will record observations of organisms, briefly research them, and develop a CER style writing to justify their identification.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn about hands-on activities that engage students in science and research, and strategies to improve evidence-based writing in the science classroom including a CER checklist, scaffolding techniques for struggling writers, vocabulary banks, sentence frames, and peer feedback.

SPEAKERS:
Maureen Barclay (Captain Shreve High School: Shreveport, LA), Amy Douglas Kendrick (Jena High School: Jena, LA)

This session will engage participants in authentic conservation decision-making practices using dynamic, interactive tools on the Half-Earth Project Map and Map of Life. The activities shared empower learners to evaluate biodiversity distribution, protected areas, and human impacts.

TAKEAWAYS:
Human activity adversely impacts biodiversity through habitat destruction, pollution, invasive species, and climate change. However, data-driven tech tools help ensure conservation decisions protect areas with the highest biodiversity with equitable benefits to humans.

SPEAKERS:
Jocelyn Miller (E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation: Chapel Hill, NC)

This workshop will introduce attendees to a localized OpenSciEd unit designed to help 9th graders understand why New Orleans floods so frequently from everyday rainstorms. We will engage in student hat to investigate one of the causes of this issue and reflect on implications for other classrooms.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will learn how to use modeling to draw conclusions about complex environmental science ideas that are relevant to students’ everyday lives. They will leave with a unit storyline and ideas for how to apply these strategies in different contexts.

SPEAKERS:
Claire Anderson (Ripple Effect), Lindsey Mohan (BSCS Science Learning: Burnet, TX)

To ensure a resilient future, we must engage students with phenomena and problems found in food systems and agriculture. This session explores how food and agriculture connect to students’ lives and presents a highly relevant and authentic science context immersed in the Three Dimensions of NGSS.

TAKEAWAYS:
Educators will see successful examples of authentic phenomena and problems found within food and agricultural systems that are relevant to all students. We will demonstrate how all three dimensions of NGSS are used to make sense of these real-world phenomena and problems.

SPEAKERS:
Rick Henningfeld (Vivayic, Inc.), Craig Rebich (Relevant Classroom: Lawrenceburg, IN), Brian Beierle (Relevant Classroom, a Division of Vivayic, Inc.: Wauwatosa, WI)

In this workshop, you’ll learn how to help your students connect to nature through birds–an accessible animal in every season, explore biodiversity data, build science practices with eBird participatory science, and use tech and big data to help conservation efforts wherever you are.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will be able to: use the Merlin Bird ID app to identify birds, submit data to eBird, and describe how participatory science helps students develop data literacy, deepen their understanding of biodiversity, uncover real-world patterns and trends, and support conservation efforts.

SPEAKERS:
Susan Licher (Cornell Lab of Ornithology: Blacksburg, VA)

Participants will be engaged with current research techniques using STEM to engaged students in real world problem solving.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will take away strategies and techniques to use in their classroom to introduce students to how to collect, analyze and report out research.

SPEAKERS:
Judith Lucas-Odom (Chester High School: Ardmore, PA)