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Thank you Don, for getting us started in this conversation. STEM fields offer great opportunity to our students, but education is key in these areas for them to succeed. One way to start as teachers is educating ourselves. See the virtual conference session collections on the "Event Details and Agenda" page of the program at: http://www.nsta.org/vc Flavio.

Good morning! I can't wait for this day to begin! The lineup of presenters is outstanding! It was difficult to narrow down what I should do.. so glad to know that I will have access to all of the sessions as archives! Thank you for making this virtual conference a reality!

Carolyn, You make a good point about the archives. Very useful to have them available to review the conference at a later time. Flavio.

Hi, I am a neophyte to STEM, but hope to implement a STEM club after school. One of the problems we have in the elementary school in Georgia, is the fact that science is not an "important" tested subject. More time is often alloted to math and reading with 30 minute slots given for science and social studies. Of course, this is a broad generalization and many fabulous teachers make time for science and social studies, anyway - as do many schools. However, I have been in many schools and this was the norm. For example, I was in a school where the only time they gave to science was to use the science book as an example of non-fiction in the reading group.

Laura (and all) First, many thanks to Flavio Mendez, Sr. Director for the NSTA Learning Center in organizing today's virtual conference, and this asynchronous component. A shout out also goes to Don Boonstra, one of our leaders at NSTA for posting a great opening discussion question herein. Larua I think you ask a fair and relevant question. From a national perspective, we too review surveys and national research that discuss the limited time dedicated for science instruction at the elementary level. Some reports show this as little as 90 minutes across an entire instructional week. That said, with the notion of STEM, there is an increased and renewed emphasis across all levels of teaching, including elementary, where as you say, literacy is a powerful 'in-roads" for teaching science (and vice versa). In February of 2014 the Board on Science Education at the National Academies held a two day workshop on this topic and provides a cool report that may inform your deliberations. The entire conference is also archived where you can see panels and experts discuss how to meld science education and literacy (the two topics are not mutually exclusive). It discussed the intersection between the “Literacy in Science” portions of the Common Core State Standards for English/Language Arts and certain scientific practices in the NGSS, such as “obtaining, evaluating and communicating information.” Check out: http://sites.nationalacademies.org/DBASSE/BOSE/Literacy_for_Science/index.htm. Finally I might suggest checking out our "Picture Perfect Science Series" that looks to integrate literacy with hands-on inquiry lessons that capitalize on those popular early literacy readers. See: http://learningcenter.nsta.org/search.aspx?action=quicksearch&text=picture%20perfect

Laura, We, too, struggle with providing our students with multiple resources of non-fiction text aligned to the instructional needs of our students. We have used ReadWorks and NewsELA. NPR publishes there articles on-line. The content may be an extension for student learning, but I have found that the articles are a great way for student to learn more about the Nature of Science and connect with "real world" experiences. Jen

Thanks Dorothy! What STEM activities/units/programs have you implemented in Wisconsin? Flavio.

I am creating a k-5 STEM program this year for our school. My biggest challenges have been projects that students are engaged in and ideas for k-2 students. I love the Makers in Schools mindset and think I am going in that direction next year. It is very open with students picking projects that they would like to build, from robots to clothing.

Northshore SD will be providing a workshop at our summer institute on engineering design challenges as a frame for learning science content. It'll be August 18 and 19. We don't have the exact location yet, but it will be somewhere in the Northshore School District. It's for our teachers, but representatives from local districts are certainly welcome to join!

Hi, Georgia Boatman here. I am the Regional Science Coordinator at ESD 123 in Southeast Washington. We are doing quite a bit of STEM work in our region and part of my job is working with administrators and teachers, district and community to help them get STEM education implementation going in our region. Washingtonians, you might also want to nudge your districts toward the Washington LASER STEM Education Leadership Institute. We are full for this year but will likely do another institute next year. I am a lead faculty and it has been a real tipping point for districts and schools to move forward with STEM.

Jeremy- I am at a K-5 Elementary STEM program and our librarian just put a Makerspace into our library this year. It is AMAZING! She did a lot of research on how to create the program and have it tie into our science and engineering lessons. She uses MakeyMakey, Raspberry Pi, old lego NXT robotics kits, donated K'Nex kits, Scratch coding, Lego WeDO robotics kits, a 3-D printer, and a building area. If you are interested I can give you her email and she can send you a brief overview of the program. It might give you more ideas seeing how we are doing it in a very limited space with little budget!