Session Browser

Explore a student-driven NGSS storyline in which students’ investigations support development of particle-level models of matter and temperature change that inform their engineering of fog machines.

The effects of Western science subculture on indigenous students implore us to get to know our students better by exploring culture in the science classroom. Participants will engage in conversation, reflection, and examination surrounding culture in the classroom as well as create a culturally responsive practice action plan.

Students will research bees, their roles as pollinators, and learn how their dinner plate would change if we don’t solve the declining bee population through Problem-Based Learning.

Experience engaging activities that allow you to take young children outside and easily integrate, art, music, science, math, and social studies while using NGSS science practices. Handouts.

Critical thinking strategies will be shared to engage students in critical thinking for evaluating claims, with evidence, using the familiar context of food.

We will discuss the positive self-efficacy arising in STEM courses for youth who participated in an informal citizen science project and share websites with participants interested in doing this with their own students.

Make the conceptual leap from 2D to 3D and make teaching topography, topographic maps, and topographic profiles a concrete, engaging, hands-on learning experience.

Engage students with activities using real science issues and questions. We will explore lessons and data-collection tools and methods to answer student-driven questions.

Citizen science provides an accessible way to facilitate student science investigations and engaging STEM learning. Students making citizen-science observations ask questions through curiosity and interests.

Explore a new model for summer science camps that incorporates substantive teacher training and puts undergraduates in the driver seat.

Explore instructional resources, collaboratively developed by NSTA and WIDA, to support multilingual learners’ engagement in three-dimensional science, while seamlessly integrating language development.

Learn about Argument-Driven Inquiry and how it can help students learn how to use disciplinary core ideas, crosscutting concepts, and science and engineering practices to explain natural phenomena.

Capitalize on natural human curiosity by presenting science lessons via captivating stories, mysterious demonstrations, and student-produced inventive models.

De-tracking secondary science classes can be a benefit to all students. Come learn about the research and discuss differentiation tools to make de-tracking more successful in your school.

Attention will be paid to content literacy strategies to enable K–8 students to read science text and visuals with understanding, and to communicate concepts, observations, and investigative findings orally and in writing. Handouts.

Discover how interactive e-books, along with hands-on activities, can meaningfully engage students in three-dimensional learning of science phenomena while also engaging students in grade-level appropriate English language arts and mathematics.

Demonstration lessons will be modeled to teach science simultaneously with reading, writing, speaking, and listening strategies,

Discussion centers on tools to properly analyze Black students’ scientific work to determine if the misconceptions and misunderstandings are a learning issue or language issue. This workshop focuses on the use of language to reduce the ethnic achievement gap in science.

What makes it rain? M&Ms versus Skittles? Baking soda versus baking powder? Free online lesson plans of hands-on activities and animations help your elementary students build foundational concepts in chemistry.

Discover resources designed to engage elementary students in hands-on STEM experiences programming drones and robots to model modern food production practices in high-tech agriculture.

Using a data-generating simulation for microevolution, learn how to lead students through an analysis of raw data to draw explanations supported by evidence.

Feeling overwhelmed by all there is to see and do at an NSTA conference on science education? Join us for an interactive exploration through the program, the conference app, and NSTA’s social media. By the end of the session, you will know just how to get the most from your conference experience in addition to building new networks with science colleagues.

Ticket Price: $15 advance; $20 on-site

Add your tickets when you register online or via the Attendee Service Center if you’re already registered.

In order to interact and apply Newton’s laws of motion via potential and kinetic energy, participants in this short course will design a model roller coaster using foam tubes and marbles that works reliably and safely. After teams design their roller coaster, they will evaluate the efficiency of their coaster and write a report of their findings as a student would. Lastly, participants will discuss how the workshop applies directly to the 5-E Learning Cycle and NSTA’s Matrices (SEP, DCI, CCC). Other aspects and theories of the lesson will be discussed through Kagan Cooperative Learning structures.

Integrating effective collaboration techniques promotes a teacher’s ability to hear student responses and assess student thought processes all while allowing students to learn from one another.

When students and teachers work with a community, they can shape the future chances of wildlife to carry on natural phenomena. Free seeds, lesson plans.

Using the same techniques used to develop the AAAS Project 2061 Atlas of Science Literacy, maps have been created of the elements of the core ideas, practices, crosscutting concepts, connections to nature of science, connections to engineering, and performance expectations described in NGSS, and other standards based on the NRC Framework. See how elements of the dimensions relate to and build on each other. Learn how the Atlas can support work in curriculum, instruction, and assessment.

Experience strategies for equitable invitations to science that cultivate curiosity, doing authentic science, and inspiring science passion supplemented with real-world (sometimes hilarious) student examples

What is epistemic inquiry? Engage in direct instruction and active group work strategies to make the message and the methodology of epistemic inquiry consistent.

The fictional events highlighting adventures of Harry Potter in J. K. Rowling’s children’s literature series can serve as enticing entrees into science and engineering activities.

The American Chemical Society has produced Guidelines for Chemical Laboratory Safety in Secondary Schools. The guidelines also outline a protocol, designated by the acronym RAMP, for designing and writing improved safety procedures for chemistry experiments. We will explore examples and applications of the four principles of safety: Recognize the hazard; Analyze the risk of the hazard; Mitigate the risk; and Prepare for emergencies, as well as show examples on how to integrate RAMP into lab activities.

Learn with and from the members of the NSTA Professional Development committee in a collaborative conversation about supporting three-dimensional professional learning.

Hands-on activities, animations, and software are used to demonstrate important seismic wave characteristics, wave propagation, wave types, the elastic rebound, earthquake location, and earthquake damage.

Ever wonder how to get more students interested in what you teach? Add some pop culture and a pop culture project to make the connection with the students. Information will be shared via Dropbox.

Enhance and deepen science and math concepts taught in traditionally “fun” polymer labs. NGSS correlations  Add more scientific processes to make them inquiry based.

Evolution is all around us! Use a current example of speciation in the historic Galápagos Islands to engage your students and pique their curiosity.

With free software available, schools and teachers can introduce even young students to autocad programs which will allow them to design and build models in 3D. Come learn about Tinkercad and how you can incorporate 3D modeling into standards-based science, math, literacy, or social studies projects.

Explore the effects of opioids at the molecular, cellular, organ, and organismal levels and learn how they intersect with pain, tolerance, and addiction. Free at http://teach.genetics.utah.edu.

Engage your students in a citizen science project on pollinator decline while addressing biology standards on hypothesis testing, data analysis, and modeling natural phenomena.

Discover how your text selections can strengthen pathways of access for students to see themselves in the science classroom and the discipline.

STEM picture books/tradebooks are different from other picture books. They incorporate divergent thinking and problem-solving skills, which expand student understanding of content and process.

Explore the astronomical boundary bisecting terrestrial and jovian planets while leveraging curiosity in natural phenomena as a means to drive instruction and deepen students’ understanding.

Develop humanitarian ideas while helping students develop their STEM expertise. Hear how students recently designed and developed their own prosthetic limbs while taking a STEM education course.

Having students create a (YouTube) video lab conclusion is a powerful assessment tool that can improve an instructor’s assessment of student understanding.

Are you a K–12 science teacher in need of a science lab makeover? Attend this Shell Science Lab presentation and learn how you can apply to win the Shell Science Lab Regional Challenge! You will have an opportunity to actually begin to complete the application and have your questions answered.

Model stellar evolution processes using NASA images, plot H-R diagram transitions, and determine the chemistry and physics of supernovas using NASA STEM image analysis tools.

Learn the key strategies to writing a fundable proposal and the available ACS grant opportunities for high school chemistry teachers and students.

Engaging and innovative—learn how interactive multimedia elements and text from interactive e-books can enhance science learning in middle school and high school.

Emphasis will be placed on five-minute daily strategies that will get students to become fluent in scientific vocabulary.

The idea of entropy rears its head in many applications from heat and temperature to chemical reactions and image reconstruction. A fun and easy activity shows the way to an interesting introduction to this important idea.

Life science activities designed to address the newly accepted NSTA/ASTE 2020 Science Standards for Teacher Preparation and increase the pedagogical content knowledge of elementary preservice and inservice teachers will be presented.

In this new NGSS-designed unit, students apply concepts from basic genetics to understand how DNA variations lead to different phenotypes. Free materials at https://teach.genetics.utah.edu/

Ideas, lessons, and STEM Days are all included. Get motivated with project ideas, complete a hands-on activity that you can do in your classroom right away, and walk away with several 5E lesson plans, schoolwide monthly activities, and tips on how to make room for science  in your weekly schedule. Extra Bonus: Come share your PBL ideas at our end-of-class STEM smash!

Implement an NGSS-driven Immersive Virtual Field Experience (IVFE) as one possible method for making an authentic field experience accessible to nearly all K–12 and undergraduate students.

Meet Sammie, the Scientific Method and Reggie, the Ruler and other science skills brought to life through the power of storytelling. Develop scientific inquiry and reading skills with storytelling. Leave with ideas, strategies, and sample book titles to use in your classroom to integrate science into reading groups.

Are you excited to implement Problem-Based Learning but aren’t sure how to meet the needs of diverse learners? Learn how to support language acquisition through science content while also meeting reading and writing standards.

We will examine sample student responses to explore how to design cognitive assessments of 3-D learning and engage in sensemaking to interpret student responses. Participants will work together to define options for next steps of instruction based on their understanding of student thinking of sample student responses. Issues of equitable assessment will be discussed, including addressing linguistic diversity, cultural assessments of student and community interests and funds of knowledge, and ways that assessments intersect with students’ identity development.

Learn about Argument-Driven Inquiry and how it can help students learn how to use disciplinary core ideas, crosscutting concepts, and science and engineering practices to explain natural phenomena.

Meet with an NSTA journal editor to learn how to successfully prepare and submit a manuscript for publication.

Join me as I share the benefits of teaching science as inquiry and learn how to create classroom environments that embrace inquiry. I'll actively engage you—while emphasizing hands-on explorations coupled with literacy and thinking skills—to advance learning, engagement, and the joys of achievement in science.

We will combine the perspectives of several disciplines from art, technology, theater, engineering, and multiple fields in science to learn how we can prepare students to engage with phenomena and observe from multiple perspectives.

Ticket Price: $47 advance; $52 on-site

Add your tickets when you register online or via the Attendee Service Center if you’re already registered.

In which ways are the Framework vision and STEM initiatives in harmony with each other? We will explore the Framework vision for a scientifically literate society and discuss how this vision is mutually supportive of STEM education. In this short course, we will focus on aspects of the designed world through the application of science and engineering practices. The goal of this short course is to empower educators to better integrate both STEM and three-dimensional standards for teaching and learning.

Note: Attendees should bring a notepad and pencil or tablet/laptop.

Peer-mentoring is a powerful strategy to support elementary school teachers in feeling comfortable developing and executing STEM lessons in the classroom, as well as refreshing high school and college educators who could provide the support. We will share methods for mentoring to promote STEM teaching careers.

Matter tag is an interactive tag game developed to help students understand a model of the kinetic theory teaching the states of matter and the phase changes of matter. This is great for all learners but especially for English language learners. Kids love it!

How does what’s inside my cell phone relate to Earth’s interior? Students explore copper mines, their benefits and drawbacks, and vote on building a new copper mine.

Critically engage in the process of creating a unit that links concepts, practices, and core ideas of the NGSS to explore an environmental catastrophe.

Using socioscientific issues as a critical pedagogical strategy to expose students to place-based education results in improvement in student engagement and attitudes toward the environment.

Join us for an overview of how a physics team uses testing data from common assessments to guide instructional practice.

Spark science interest with the birds on your school yard. We’ll share fun K–5 activities and you’ll leave with a window bird feeder!

NOAA and NWS’s wealth of free online resources will help inform and inspire students to action in research and stewardship for our vital freshwater ecosystems.

Wondering how to add literacy to your STEM lessons? Come learn about NSTA’s initiative “Best STEM Books” and how to identify and integrate the Best STEM Books.

We used to evaluate ransom notes based upon handwriting, this is no longer realistic in our electronic age. What can we do now?

Take part in a hands-on activity with a chemical equilibrium having a large K value. Participants will learn ways to overcome student misconceptions about equilibrium. Handouts.

Let’s address our control and compliance issues to allow room for play. Play feeds curiosity and nurtures lifelong learners. Explore using LEGO® bricks for prototyping.

Discover how to navigate the space between life science concepts and engineering practices in this hands-on workshop contextualizing engineering and technology in our food system.

Use model buildings and a simple shake table to study the effects of earthquake vibrations and damage.

Designing and implementing assessments for the NGSS require a markedly different approach to science assessment than traditionally taken. Effective assessments have the potential to generate a robust suite of usable information about science performance, if designed and used well. Emphasis will be placed on practical dos, don’ts, and strategies for transitioning assessments to be 3-D.

See how solar astronomy activities can provide three-dimensional learning experiences. Explore effective ways for students to learn about the daily and annual motions of the Sun, plus lunar phases and solar/lunar eclipses.

Engage in interdisciplinary and inquiry-based activities on climate change that highlight writing and digital communication from science data analysis.

Investigate different types of energy such as electrical, thermal, sound, hydro, wind, and solar energy using various types of toys.

Join us to explore digital media illustrating Earth and space phenomena, with support tools and classroom integration tips. Examples for grades 6–12 will be shared.

Hear how the Natural History Museum of Utah brought together community, experts, scientists, and educators to broaden diversity and inclusion in the K–12 classroom.

Discover how to elicit and explore students’ initial ideas and models of ionic and covalent compounds by engaging in a simple but effective phenomenon.

Investigate the particles of a liquid and changes of state through hands-on activities and molecular model animations from free 5Es (Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate) lesson plans at middleschoolchemistry.com.

Challenge your students’ to apply the concepts of work, energy, friction, and Newton’s first law of motion using an inexpensive rubber band slingshot.

Take part in lessons linking nonfiction historical trade books and science content from the Eureka! series for K–2 and grades 3–5.

Does vitamin D do more than prevent rickets? Discussion centers on questioning the connection between vitamin D deficiency and autism, modeling critical-thinking and data analysis.

Get introduced to problem-based enhanced language learning (PBELL), a research-based strategy supported by the iTeachELL grant out of Arizona State University.

Place-based education and NGSS have many complementary characteristics. Come experience the power that blending these two can have on classroom instruction and student engagement.

Explore how to use active formative assessment classroom strategies to set up a classroom learning environment where students can think critically and work toward understanding.

We will explore a tool that science educators, leaders, and professional development providers can use in the selection, design, or evaluation of professional development programs.

We developed and tested a professional development model to support teachers’ use of a learning science framework to evaluate activities and integrate them into a sequence to facilitate their students’ development of integrated understanding of NGSS performance expectations.

Use a practical engineering approach in a hands-on buoyancy force experiment. We will examine and determine the density of helium using the principle of buoyancy.

Join us to learn more about safe chemical storage and management in middle school and high school science classrooms. Handouts and links to American Chemical Society resources will be provided for immediate classroom use and we will engage in group activities to “organize” mock storage rooms.

National Science Teachers Association and the Association for Science Teacher Education have developed a new set of preparation standards for science teachers. Join a discussion on the implications and application of these standards.

Investigate various phenomena across grades K–8, which include patterns of temperature changes throughout the day (NGSS K-ESS2) to Kaibab deer population numbers throughout recent history (NGSS MS-LS1 and MS-LS2).

Hear about misconceptions related to chemicals and then experience a lesson where students learn about what chemicals are and whether they’re always dangerous.

Productive talk is the keystone of phenomena-driven instruction where students are engaged in the sensemaking practices of developing and using models, analyzing and interpreting data, and constructing explanations. We’ll explore how to create a classroom culture where discussion is respectful, equitable, and focused on reasoning. Leverage productive talk and empower your students.

Join in to visualize the structure-function relationships of the cardiovascular system and its applications by building working models of the heart.

Ticket Price: $12 advance; $17 on-site

Add your tickets when you register online or via the Attendee Service Center if you’re already registered.

If you are willing to add some chaos in your classroom and the PE department doesn’t mind, PE scooters are a fabulous way to teach your students Newton’s laws of motion. Students love the physical activity, but it can be crazy! This is a great Sheltered Instruction lesson.

Discussion centers on teaching about waves in your STEM/STEAM classroom with solar sails.

Tailor new learning with paper and sewable circuit projects that integrate electricity/energy NGSS practices with social studies standards on the Civil War and human migration.

Hear how to develop and implement an interdisciplinary course-based undergraduate research experience in a college environment.

Explore how to establish a learning environment where mistakes can be used to promote curiosity, improve problem-solving, and ensure science success.

Hear about various NSTA competitions and how they can bring STEM and the NGSS into the classroom, as well as give students and teachers a chance to earn recognition and prizes. Free food and a gift bag will be distributed to each participant.

How do you teach your students to defend the claims they make? Engage them in challenges, competitions, and debates!

Make the unequal distribution of resources (yawn) interesting with a Catan-style game, real minerals to play with, and parodies (Earthy and many more)!

Explore ways to incorporate NGSS crosscutting concepts and science and engineering practices into informal education programs to offer three-dimensional learning opportunities even in short, single visits.

We will examine the process one intermediate school used to build an integrated curriculum that motivates and engages their students.

Engineers are at the heart of our community, solving the problems of our citizens. Join us to learn more about a hands-on, standards-based engineering unit and learn to identify and secure community partners.

Join more than 20 NESTA members and other education specialists as they share their favorite NGSS-congruent classroom activities. Lots of free resources!

Learn about Argument-Driven Inquiry and how it can help students learn how to use disciplinary core ideas, crosscutting concepts, and science and engineering practices to explain natural phenomena.

Get 30+ classroom-ready strategies, activities, and resources that will engage all learners, increase student achievement in STEM, and target areas of the 5Es (Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate) model.

Explore the characteristics of the water molecule and the process of dissolving through hands-on activities and molecular animations from free 5Es (Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate) lesson plans at middleschoolchemistry.com.

Experience strategies for engaging students in analyzing and interpreting data to discover the structural factors that affect the solubility and melting point of ionic compounds.

The Lewis and Clark expedition offers a rich opportunity to bridge science, social studies, and ELA using STEM and three-dimensional learning as the foundation.

The Great Salt Lake is a living laboratory. We will share 3-D science curriculum developed through a collaboration with scientists and district specialists.

Dissect the differences between engagers and phenomena, parsing critical components of effective phenomenon-based teaching and learning from flashy engagers. Handouts provided.

Form a bridge between computer science and environmental literacy with the use of a global PBL project where students research, solve, and collaborate on a local environmental issue and then design and build a robot to solve the issue.

Use corrosion to teach practical applications of chemistry concepts. Make reactivity, oxidation/reduction, solution chemistry, and corrosion engineering exciting and relevant.

Calling all science education professors at the conference to discuss ways you can use NSTA digital resources and professional learning tools as your online textbook when teaching science preservice teachers. Professors will be present to answer questions.

Build an understanding of measurement, units, and unit conversion by measuring speed with measuring devices students design and construct.

There’s an E missing in STEM! Human beings are natural engineers who are constantly solving problems. Learn how to examine your curriculum—including literacy—to identify appropriate problems to solve, design, and implement an engineering design challenge. Hands-on activities and sample projects provided.

Learn how to differentiate your instruction and assessment as you implement NGSS in your school. Bring your tablet/laptop.

Experience strategies for engaging students in analyzing and interpreting data to discover the structural factors that affect melting point and other properties of covalent compounds.

Explore the production of a gas, a precipitate, and changes in temperature through hands-on activities and molecular model animations from free 5Es (Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate) lesson plans at middleschoolchemistry.com.

Discover a multidisciplinary open-ended investigation that incorporates absolute and relative dating, anomalies, historical context, volcanoes, solar proton events, energy cycles, Earth systems, terrestrial events and supernovas.

We will construct and use a variety of models to help students develop explanations about natural phenomena in order to support the science and engineering practices as outlined by the NGSS.

We will provide ideas to help students read and write like engineers as they participate in hands-on engineering design activities.

Deepen your students’ STEM experience by adding various polymer inquiry/engineering design challenges. Take “traditionally fun” polymer activities and turn them into NGSS investigations to create more critical thinkers in the classroom.

A fusion of playful observation, song, and autonomy will keep students coming back for more. Experience the power of sneaking in the content using parodies.

Guide your students through a data-driven investigation of heritability, variation, and reproductive advantage—the fuel for evolution. Free at http://teach.genetics.utah.edu/content/evolution .

Join us as we use computational tools to collect data from an epidemic simulation to model a disease moving through a population.

In 2019, Achieve launched a network of districts in Tennessee with the goal of building their collective capacity to move toward their vision for science education for all students. Find out how the network used a collective need for better assessments as a key lever for change to simultaneously improve assessments, increase teacher capacity, and advance equity in science.

Bring creativity and critical thinking skills into the classroom with technology-based projects. Collaborative, thoughtful projects will take your students’ processing skills to the next level.

Socratic seminars continue the tradition of Socrates, the classical Greek philosopher who taught his followers by asking questions. Today, Socratic dialogue can transform students’ learning experience in classrooms through high school and beyond. When facilitated by a teacher, the Socratic method can lead to improved student achievement, increased motivation, and a more respectful classroom culture.

Find out how to engage your students as sensemakers through storylines. We will share templates and processes that you can use to create phenomenon-based storylines.

Young children are natural engineers! We will explore early childhood experiences that meet the NGSS engineering practices.

Explore how the second edition of this former NSF-funded project is used with three-dimensional standards, a collective set of NSTA and online resources, and research on commonly held ideas to make informed decisions about teaching and learning. Applications for individual or group professional learning will be addressed.

Let’s address our compliance issues to allow room for play. Play feeds curiosity and nurtures lifelong learners. Explore using LEGO® bricks for modeling in science.

Grades 4–6 educators use the CER framework to connect ELA to the science practices: Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information and Engaging in Argument from Evidence.

Explore how excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere makes water more acidic through hands-on activities from free 5Es (Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate) lesson plans at middleschoolchemistry.com.

Use culminating activities to assess how students integrate their ideas and construct arguments from explorations of the properties and structure of ionic and covalent compounds.

Want to teach climate literacy but not sure how to start? Begin with NOAA’s free online resources to educate and inspire students to seek solutions.

NSTA provides educators with thousands of free digital resources and opportunities—as well as a professional peer community—that support professional learning and classroom instruction. NSTA gift cards will be raffled!

Discover how to make technology an essential tool in your science laboratory. Find out its enormous potential for data collection, analysis, and student lab reporting in your digital laboratory. Handouts.

Engage in hands-on STEM/STEAM activities merging science and literacy across the curriculum asking, “Are you learning to read or reading to learn?”

Join National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF) representatives as they introduce the invention process as the ultimate teaching and learning tool for all learners.

Come discover how to effectively incorporate ISNs into your secondary classroom with time-saving ideas and engaging curriculum from Utah Agriculture in the Classroom.

Create and calibrate air quality sensors, as well as analyze pollution data from inversions and forest fires. Join us in using math, science, and engineering core practices to address this important current issue.

Emphasis will be placed on exploring phenomena from the outdoors; engaging in exploration through trade books; and increasing student literacies across all areas. Use children’s books and outdoor events as springboards can develop different literacies.

Attention will be paid to using iNaturalist in the classroom to increase student involvement in scientific practices, while offering teaching resources for exploring life sciences.

Review findings from a study using contextualized instruction as an innovative strategy to determine its impacts on development of critical thinking skills (CTS). CTS refer to the ability to conceptualize, analyze, evaluate, argue, make inferences, and informed decisions by students through observation and experimentation.

Join us to explore digital media illustrating Earth and space phenomena, with support tools and classroom integration tips. Examples for grades K–5 will be shared.

Discussion centers on the resources needed to have your students participate in meaningful discussions about race, class, and health care using a nonfiction novel.

Use engineering problem-solving strategies to teach science through resolving everyday vexations. This session will look at how Western Governors University’s preservice and TOR students learn this strategy firsthand.

Investigate potential and kinetic energy through an M&M masher by collecting data and making initial claims while learning student-student and teacher-student discourse moves.

We will explore how school/district leaders can take advantage of NSTA’s vast resources—including on-site, online, and blended options—to create professional learning that is personalized for the teachers they serve. Presenters will provide a sample of the type of support we can provide, including examples of how NSTA facilitators foster community and provide sustained professional learning support.

Learn how to access and explore NOAA’s data-rich resources, lesson plans, and visualization tools to help you build student proficiency in scientific data analysis.

Hear about research on when and where STEM learning occurs, as well as effective science experiences between schools and out-of-school programs. Leave with ideas on similar experiences you can develop in your district or area.

It has been said by some that curriculum “best practice” changes like the weather! But water, wind, and weather are always great themes for a three-dimensional early childhood curriculum. Come participate in great activities for K–3 fully integrated with some of the best literature around.

Receive hands-on activities with Project-/Problem-Based Learning while merging science and crosscutting the curriculum with other subjects.

Science teachers cringe at the dreaded words “We’ve done this before.” Learn how to prepare experiences where students reflect and communicate a deeper understanding of similar content in new, challenging ways.

Tap into the powerful potential of integrating content areas by experiencing science and engineering learning launched with an interactive read-aloud and enhanced with math.

Are you hoping to bring more Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics into your middle school science classroom? Come learn about how to put all of these ingredients together to make a delicious STEM “treat” for your students. Your students will learn why STEM is so important through the use of in-class activities, Project-Based Learning, and community-based problem solving like the web-based, STEM competition, eCYBERMISSION.

The Big Three acronyms for science and math teachers are STEM, NGSS, and CCSS. Come see how these three can and should be BFFs.

We will examine how an old “tried and true” experience becomes three dimensional when anchoring phenomena are tied to investigative phenomena forming a coherent storyline.

Hear how integrating interactive video lectures can promote student understanding and help increase assessment scores.

Find out how a grade 8 teacher used scaffolded instruction strategies with a maker project to develop students’ science engagement and interest.

Reporting on worldwide research efforts,  the discussion will center on the impact of what we eat and how we live our lives from now on to generations to come. In turn, we were impacted by the diets and lifestyles of our parents and grandparents.

Need great books for student learning? Explore and use NSTA Recommends and the Children’s Book Council Outstanding Science Trade Books. Door prizes—books, of course!

Use the concepts of materials science to make the connections to all the areas of science. Instead of teaching in “silos,” make connections that students can relate to in all areas of science. Resources shared via Dropbox.

Hear how National Science Olympiad competitions including events and supporting resources are easily incorporated into existing curricula to actively engage students with STEM activities and projects.

You’ve heard it said, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” Well, 3-D teaching and learning are “The Big Stuff” in science education. Join us for a 100% hands-on session of data collection, data analysis, and data discussion.

Engage in a hands-on 3D design of a molecule or landform while learning about the STEM integrative flow model for creating STEM units.

Participate in a teacher-directed model and a student-designed model to experience the impact of developing and using models to teach depth, detail, and dynamics.

Instruction based on the crosscutting concepts helps students build a deeper understanding of science. Come experience effective and meaningful instruction using the crosscutting concepts.

Find out how to use familiar phenomena to elicit students’ thinking about concepts and disciplinary core ideas related to matter and energy and inform instructional decisions.

Phenomena are doorways to science understanding. Students Discover, Investigate, and Generate core idea knowledge about phenomena through application of crosscutting concepts and practices. But how do we effectively employ phenomena in the classroom?

Engage in and explore how to best select phenomena to sustain inquiry across performance expectations while building your professional learning network.

Shift responsibility for learning from the teacher to the student. Improve student learning of science by helping students track their own understanding.

Hear how Oakvale Elementary created an innovative approach to integrating science into multidisciplinary instruction through phenomenon-based learning modules.

Encounter how science-reading integration can build classroom rapport, foster cross-disciplinary learning, and stretch students’ knowledge of science concepts—with minimal impact on instructional time.

STEM initiatives encompass hard and soft skill sets. Join us to explore 10 STEM skills that support pathways to green careers. Leave with ready-to-implement classroom tools.

Turn misinformation into educational opportunities. We will share climate change evidence-based activities that engage students to both create models and draw conclusions from their experience.

Join in for a demonstration on how to gather resources into a single, easily updated electronic space that can make students, teachers, and parents willing to toss the textbook!

Come learn about recent research exploring ways to support students revising and building consensus models for magnetism. Techniques for teaching modeling will be shared.

Attention will be paid to how cross-curricular topics such as ecology and environmental science can be used to teach math and engineering in early childhood.

Visualization is difficult for many students. Join us as we discuss and demonstrate several modeling activities you can use in your chemistry class.

See how engineering design and 3D printing of lab equipment help students explore and deepen physics relationships by using an iterative process to create the best solution.

Engage with Research Quest—free, online, NGSS-focused, phenomenon-based investigations using authentic museum objects and research to build students’ critical-thinking, collaboration, and communication skills.

Viruses are everywhere in our world! Engage students in a hands-on NGSS-focused engineering/modeling activity that challenges students to explore the world of viruses.

Join in for a crash course in understanding the fundamentals of weather. Taught by a National Weather Service meteorologist, learn a basic understanding of the science.

Join the author of Be a Winner: Get a Grant and Your Students Win, Too! to learn how you can take your ideas and turn them into a successful grant proposal! Anyone can receive a grant—you can, too!

Case studies are a great tool for teaching science. Cases can be used to teach scientific concepts, process skills, and critical thinking.

Receive an overview of a dynamic research-based curriculum developed in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It has successfully educated thousands of students about the science and hazards of avalanches. Take home a copy of the curriculum to bring avalanche science and safety back to your school.

Through eBird citizen science, get students outside, contributing data, exploring population change over time, and learning about habitat, migration, and life cycles.

Find out how outdoor and place-based science lessons can enhance students’ knowledge of trees, forests, and the real-world environment while hitting STEM benchmarks.

Professional development opportunities remind us all how fun teaching Earth science can be. Join us for a jolt of inspiration!

Intertwine literacy and science to connect students’ experiences, languages, and learning in the primary grades.

Join us as we explore AACT and ACS lab safety resources and how to use them in your middle school and high school science classrooms.

Are you asked to incorporate reading and writing into your lessons to support literacy in language arts? We have the right strategies for you!

Join us to learn how to put together a successful periodic table unit using lessons, activities, labs, videos, animation, and simulations from the AACT’s website.

Explore how solar-infused project-based engineering design challenges can immerse students in NGSS practices while adding depth and relevance to existing lessons on circuits and electricity.

Together we will explore instructional strategies to connect students with place-based science and apply student learning to community writing projects.

Kevin, an Antarctic PolarTREC expedition member, will share how you can use polar science experiences to engage science students in authentic, useful, ecological science in your classroom.

Explore how the Uncovering Student Ideas in Science probes can be modified for three dimensional formative assessment and learn how to develop your own 3-D probe.

Explore how NASA research helped develop a service-learning outreach program throughout grades 6–12 using NGSS activities to train student mentors.

Click! Remote cameras are popular wildlife surveys tools. We’ll demonstrate how these photographs get your students asking questions and making evidence-based claims about local wildlife.

Digital media provides unique accessibility opportunities, especially when enhanced with supports for diverse learners. We will present Earth and space science digital resources and highlight the accessibility features that are built in.