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

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.

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.

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

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.

What does pH actually measure? In this investigation, you will measure pH indirectly using indicators and absorption using the Lab-Master. Using their data, participants generate a graph of absorbance versus pH. This graph can be used to determine the pH of solutions, within the measured pH range. Join us for this activity from The Natural Approach to Chemistry program.

Uncover students’ conceptual understanding of atoms, molecules, and compounds using NGSS science and engineering modeling practices. Explore chemistry topics in polarity, pH, density, solubility, bonding, and much more with three-dimensional teaching and learning manipulatives! Make learner thinking visible through student-centered simulations of dissociation and neutralization. Great formative assessment probes provided!

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.

We distill water to purify it, or so we think. So why does the clear distillate from apple cider smell like apples? Join us and find out! Using a clever test-tube distillation apparatus, we will distill the essence of vanilla and the scent of mint…and even show you how to make brandy from wine! Distillation is a crucial process in chemical engineering and technology, yet few students ever get to explore the process.

Help! The principal has been murdered in the art room! Your students become crime scene investigators as they walk into a murder scene. Inspect the location of the murder using blood spatter analysis and then catch the criminal with DNA fingerprinting. This exciting workshop will include ways to incorporate biotechnology and gel electrophoresis into your classroom.

Looking for lab activities that work every time, not just periodically? Explore easy, engaging, and safer chemistry activities that will produce a reaction in your students. Whether you’re new to chemistry or feeling out of your element, you’ll learn new ways to create excitement with hands-on labs, demonstrations, and digital content.

Scientific argumentation is more than filling in boxes. Experience how students grapple authentically with competing claims, evaluate evidence quality, and are supported in the struggle to make their reasoning clear—all with examples from the newest curriculum from UC Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science, designed from the ground up for NGSS.

Learn how to encourage the development of your students’ skills in analyzing and interpreting authentic scientific data. Students can develop their scientific practice skills with free digital media tools and resources from PBS LearningMedia, produced by WGBH in collaboration with NASA and other partners. In addition to adapting videos, images, and interactives, the project features an innovative approach to incorporating data visualizations and computer simulations into instructional experiences.

Come see Simulation Curriculum’s award-winning Starry Night! Classroom-ready NGSS lessons for all grade levels engage students with interactive simulations, as well as current astronomical phenomena. Now running in the browser using all platforms, including Chromebooks.

Explore a new, atomically accurate model of double-helical DNA that can be untwisted into the familiar two-dimensional ladder and separated into two single strands to model the processes of replication and transcription! Engage students with manipulatives that allow them to convert deoxyribose to ribose sugars and generate the universal currency of energy, ATP.

A decomposing corpse is found in a field. Four possible missing persons fit the description. But who is it? Using clues near the scene will help determine identity. Forensic anthropologist Diane France helped to develop this free middle school and high school forensic science lesson.

Explore how instructional sequences designed around real-world problems can lead students to figure out phenomena using the three dimensions of science and engineering. Leaders from UC Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science will showcase an example from the Hall’s research-based pedagogy and curriculum.

Don’t think you have the nerves for physiology? Learn about easy, hands-on activities you can use to explore homeostasis, reflexes/ reactions, and responses to stimuli. The activities are suitable for all grade levels.

Neuroscience is one of the fastest growing science fields. Bring it to your classroom by making your students neuroscientists for the day! Explore the neurodegenerative disorders Huntington’s and Alzheimer’s. First, we’ll run a genetic analysis on a family who may carry the Huntington gene using PCR and gel electrophoresis. Then, we’ll run an ELISA to explore the biology behind Alzheimer’s disease.

Glowing cats? Personalized medicine? Designer babies! Empower and prepare your students to think critically as modern biology revolutionizes medicine, industry, and human lives. Learn from a leader in biotechnology education how to build your bioscience lab program step-by-step with equipment, supplies, and student credentials.

What is the difference between subscripts and coefficients? What does “balancing” a chemical equation mean? Many students have trouble with these fundamental concepts in chemistry. If a student does not fully understand the chemical formula, then moles, reactions, and stoichiometry are hopelessly confusing. Join us for some elegant, intuitive, and well-differentiated lessons that allow students of all levels to master the chemical formula and thereby move confidently into a deeper understanding of chemistry.

Transforming bacteria with plasmids that express brightly colored or fluorescent proteins is an unforgettable way to teach the central dogma of molecular biology. Why not take it a step further and see the art your students can create using their transformed bacteria? Join us for tips and tricks to maximize classroom success and to dust off your painting skills! Artistic? Our favorite designs will win a free kit.

Experience how students use models, analyze data, and gather evidence from text to figure out ideas about structure, function, and adaptive traits, to inspire their biomimicry designs. Join a hands-on dive into Amplify Science for Grades K–5, a new NGSS-designed curriculum from UC Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science.

The NGSS have raised the bar for scientific rigor and thinking. In grades 3–5, students define problems using criteria for success and constraints or limits of possible solutions. Learn how Building Blocks of Science 3D helps students use criteria and constraints to solve real-world problems. Take home lesson and workshop materials.

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

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.

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.

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.

Support three-dimensional learning with materials that engage your students in an exploration of the unique chemical and physical properties of water and the phospholipid bilayer that separates cells from their surrounding environment. Construct a model to explain diffusion, osmosis, active and passive transport across cell membranes.

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

Review findings from research that suggests a significant positive relationship between female students attending a selective high school with a challenging curriculum and then graduating from an honors college with a STEM degree.

Can we use media to convey key weather and climate concepts and enhance curriculum? What does effective media allow you and students to do, see, or explore? Explore digital resources and strategies for engaging students with media about weather and climate concepts for grades 6–12. Plenty of time for hands-on exploration of our resources on PBS LearningMedia.

Be part of a zombie apocalypse! Learn about disease-spread modeling using simulations and fun storylines about a zombie outbreak. Applicable for middle school and high school, this workshop is sure to scare you and your little zombies with its exciting Hollywood themes used to engage students in learning science!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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

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.

The practices included in the NGSS are based on exploring and solving problems. The act of engaging students in this problem solving can often be a problem in itself. Join in to work on and solve some puzzles that you can take back to the classroom. Also find out how the online STEM competition, eCYBERMISSION, gives students a chance to explore and solve problems using science and engineering and how you and your students can participate at no cost.

Emphasis will be placed on illustrating the science and engineering practices described in the Framework and NGSS through the engaging pGLO Bacterial Transformation activity.

With the transition to three-dimensional learning and NGSS, is there still a place for dissections in the classroom? The answer is yes! As you dissect a Carolina’s Perfect Solution® frog, we will demonstrate how to integrate the three dimensions of learning, highlighting adaptations and the relationship between structure and function.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Students look at historical data spanning the past 100 years to try to understand the causes of current global warming. They ask questions related to the data to figure out what the evidence indicates and to better understand how human activities relate to global warming. This activity provides an opportunity to assess MS-ESS 2-6 and MS-ESS3-5.

Add action and excitement to your science class with live organisms! Discover fun, simple hands-on three-dimensional activities with a variety of insects and arthropods you can use in your labs. Learn about care and handling, as well as easy ways to introduce phenomena. Additional resources available online for your classroom.

Explore biotechnology in this fun and interactive workshop. Unlock the color of candies by extracting their food dye and separating them using agarose gel electrophoresis. Separate complex color combinations using TLC paper chromatography. By separating out the different colors, students learn about complicated mixtures, charges on molecules, and incorporating science into their everyday lives.

Incorporate NGSS science and engineering practices into your biology class by engaging students to define the problem of world hunger. Considering constraints, students will design a treatment plan (solution) for protein-energy malnutrition in the form of an evidence-based argument.

CRISPR-based genome editing is revolutionizing the biomolecular sciences! Join us in a hands-on/minds-on exploration of how you can model this exciting new technology to engage your students in understanding the foundational concepts of molecular biology and biotechnology through two-dimensional and three-dimensional representations of the CRISPR/Cas9 protein.

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.

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

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.

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.

Looking to engage your students in citizen science? In the WildCam Gorongosa citizen science project, your classroom helps aid the incredible recovery and restoration efforts supporting Gorongosa National Park. Learn how to guide students through calculations of species diversity, richness, and evenness with the HHMI BioInteractive WildCam Lab.

Gases exchanged during photosynthesis and respiration can be easily measured when using wireless sensors. With graphing software, students can view live results, plot data trends, and quickly develop ideas about the role of plants in the cycling of energy and matter. The use of sensor technology helps students understand how plants adjust the way they transform energy when light conditions change.

With shows like CSI and NCIS, forensics is popular with students. Come experience some hands-on forensic activities that you can take back to your classroom. Don’t commit the crime of letting this workshop pass you by! Also, learn about the AEOP GEMS and UNITE programs that give students the chance to experience STEM enrichment over the summer!

Are you looking for a strategy to introduce an anchor phenomenon to your students? Join us as we model presenting an anchor phenomenon and creating a driving question board. This strategy will intrinsically motivate your students and improve their inquiry skills. Participants will be working in collaborative groups to identify anchoring, investigative, and everyday phenomena.

Genes in Space is a STEM competition for students to design DNA experiments to be performed on the International Space Station. Find out about the contest, free equipment loans, and classroom resources. Learn how to use miniPCR, restriction digest, and gel electrophoresis to characterize bacteria and protect the health of astronauts.

Use algae beads in a colorimetric assay to study photosynthesis and cellular respiration. Learn how students can observe a phenomenon, ask meaningful questions, design and carry out their own experiments to understand how these processes are connected.

How do teachers engage all students in science discourse and ensure success? Experience the importance of “science talk” to improve conceptual understanding. Leave with practical lessons from the Smithsonian STC Middle School program.

Collecting and analyzing experimental data has never been easier using Vernier technology in your lab. Bring your own device with our Graphical Analysis 4 app installed or use ours during the workshop. All activities are available as a free download for attendees.

ENGAGE students by modeling chemical and physical properties of water using magnetic water molecules. EXPLORE common phenomena such as density, erosion, and weathering. Construct physical representations to EXPLAIN the phases of water, density and solubility. ELABORATE on the water cycle and its impact on the ecosystem. EVALUATE student learning with models.

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.

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

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.

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.

Rockets zoom and race cars zip through hands-on activities that engage your middle school and high school students. Apply creative problem-solving skills and engineering practices to chemistry and physical science challenges. Experience how Carolina makes it easy to incorporate STEM into your classroom.

What strategies and supports engage English language learners in the authentic practices of science and engineering, and ensure equitable access to deep learning in science? Figure out the answer to this question as you experience an Amplify Science instructional sequence and analyze it through an ELL lens.

Join us as we use Simulation Curriculum’s The Layered Earth Geology & Meteorology to investigate plate tectonics, weather, and climate. Classroom-ready NGSS lessons engage students with interactive simulations and thought-provoking exercises using an interactive Earth model. Now running in the browser using all platforms, including Chromebooks.

Go beyond paper and candy models when studying DNA structure. Have your students directly investigate how factors like temperature, pH, and genetic sequence affect DNA. Then learn how to use fluorescence to investigate enzyme activity using an inquiry approach. You will directly observe ß-galactosidase activity—and watch it glow!

Investigate seed dispersal and habitat fragmentation using free resources from HHMI BioInteractive. Join in for authentic data, short videos, and an engineering design challenge to explore factors impacting biodiversity of forests.

Use a Wireless Pressure sensor and household products to help your students discover how well the enzyme catalase performs under various conditions. Design and conduct experiments to test the effect of varying enzyme or substrate concentration, temperature, or pH on enzyme reaction rate.

Why does climate change matter? Find out which suspected microbes are associated with increased reports of infections and why they may be more common as the temperature on Earth increases.

Explore the cellular processes of DNA replication, transcription and translation using hands-on/minds-on manipulatives that support NGSS three dimensions, most notably the science and engineering practice of developing and using models. Analyze the ß-globin gene to discover the anatomy of a gene. Handouts and information on a model lending library provided!

Great Minds, the nonprofit behind Eureka Math/EngageNY, introduces PhD Science to support three-dimensional teaching and learning. In this hands-on workshop, you’ll build a windmill and observe energy transfer (CC.5), create an anchor model (SEP.2) to record how windmills work (PS3.B), then develop a driving question board (SEP.1) to guide learning.

Learn the basics of collecting and analyzing experimental data with a focus on biology. Bring your own device with our Graphical Analysis 4 app installed or use ours during the workshop. All activities are available as a free download for attendees.

Pour, load, run, and analyze a gel using the affordable, lightning-fast MiniOne electrophoresis system to solidify the theoretical teaching of Mendelian genetics in this engaging workshop! See how hands-on experience with gel electrophoresis gets students excited and inspired by molecular biology.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Explore how the free HHMI BioInteractive short film The Biology of Skin Color and the associated resources can be used to create an inclusive and safe environment to discuss social issues, such as race and diversity in the context of science ideas and practices.

Opioid abuse is prevalent in the United States. Students take on the role of researchers as they design an experiment using a fast electrophoresis protocol of pre-amplified DNA samples that predicts addiction risks for opioid abuse, treatment, and implications to precision medicine based on a patient’s genotype.

Claim-Evidence-Reasoning (CER) is a way for students to explain observed phenomenon in a scientific way. This structured approach allows students to use observations and data from an investigation. Students use critical reasoning to connect the claim and evidence together. CER is an acclaimed and highly successful instructional strategy that is changing how students understand concepts and write explanations for phenomena.

Discover how engineering is seamlessly integrated into the Amplify Science curriculum across grades K–8. Join the curriculum designers from UC Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science to experience their cutting-edge approach to engineering and its connections to the NGSS.

Learn how to encourage the development of your students’ skills in analyzing and interpreting authentic scientific data. Students can develop their scientific practice skills with free digital media tools and resources from PBS LearningMedia, produced by WGBH in collaboration with NASA and other partners. In addition to adapting videos, images, and interactives, the project features an innovative approach to incorporating data visualizations and computer simulations into instructional experiences.

The miniPCR Sleep Lab links the genetic control of circadian rhythms to students’ own DNA. Use PCR to amplify a locus associated with preference for morning versus evening activity, and DNA gel electrophoresis to read your own circadian genotype. Students explore a genetic association in this authentic research investigation.

The NGSS recommend increasing the sophistication of student thinking through developmental learning progressions with limited core ideas and the integration of the science and engineering practices. Experience examples from the new Smithsonian Science for the Classroom and leave with workshop samples.

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.

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.

Learn the basics of collecting and analyzing experimental data with a focus on middle school. Bring your own device with our Graphical Analysis 4 app installed or use ours during the workshop. All activities are available as a free download for attendees.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

In this activity from the SEPUP high school biology program, learn about conditions that lead to speciation, including isolation due to temporal, geographical, and behavioral factors, and more. Then determine whether selected animal or plant pairs are in the early, mid, or late stages of speciation.

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.

Learn how you can teach gel electrophoresis and DNA fingerprinting in a single classroom session with this hands-on genetics and conservation biology lab! You will pour, load, run, and analyze a gel in real-time to deduce a probable conclusion for a WHALE of a forensic mystery.

Experience how students investigate the cause of the high rate of skin cancer in Australia, while figuring out how light waves interact with different materials. Join a hands-on dive into Amplify Science for Grades 6–8, a new NGSS-designed curriculum from UC Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science.

Earning a STEM Teacher Certificate will refine and demonstrate your understanding of 15 STEM Teacher Actions. These effective, engaging, and evidence-based STEM instructional strategies will transform your students’ outcomes and energize your campus. Extend your outreach by becoming a STEM-certified campus that transforms your school culture.

Give your students a real-world engineering challenge! Explore the relationship between momentum and impact forces with real-time measurement of collisions in this PASCO workshop. You will design your own crash cushion to minimize the maximum collision force of a moving cart colliding into your crash cushion. Next, analyze your results to iterate and improve on your design. Enter raffle for a chance to win a free Smart Cart!

Naturally occurring phenomena engage students in science content and, when paired with the appropriate figure, they also provide the context for analyzing data with purpose. Come explore ways to help students use authentic data to construct an explanation for a phenomenon using free, classroom-ready resources from HHMI BioInteractive.

Learn the basics of collecting and analyzing experimental data with a focus on physics. Bring your own device with our Graphical Analysis 4 app installed or use ours during the workshop. All activities are available as a free download for attendees.

Engage students by exploring response to neuronal stimuli by incorporating three-dimensional learning and hands-on/minds-on models. Construct a neuronal synapse model with sodium potassium pump, calcium, sodium, and potassium channels. Model resting and action potentials and neurotransmitter release. Develop explanations of ways drugs and toxins disturb neuronal communication. Handouts provided.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Respectful discourse is part of the culture of science. Explore the free HHMI BioInteractive Scientists at Work films that can help you engage and support your students in listening, comparing, and evaluating multiple explanations for phenomena while probing evidence and reasoning.

A complicated topic is made easy by watching the pressure of a gas product change when the mass of one reactant is varied. Using a Wireless Pressure sensor and common chemicals, any student can use patterns in their data to determine the mathematical ratio between reactants and products. Participants will also use data to distinguish between limiting and excess reactants for different experimental conditions.

In this interactive MiniLab, students analyze hair, fingerprint, and DNA evidences from the crime scene to determine who is the killer of Dr. Ward. Learn how to conduct the hands-on lab using electrophoresis to perform DNA analysis for DNA forensics.

Experience a hands-on classroom activity where students work with their own genes and PCR in the context of personalized medicine, the wave of future disease treatment.

Students often have trouble conceptualizing how selective gene expression works. We will use manipulatives to teach this concept and explain how it is connected to genetic engineering. Innovative activities are selected from the new Science and Global Issues: Biology program from SEPUP and Lab-Aids. Activities focus on ways to integrate selective gene expression as a relevant and engaging sustainability issue.

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.

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.

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.

Are you ready for a forensic dissection activity that is on the cutting-edge? Engage students and revitalize your instruction of mammalian structure and function with a “real” classroom autopsy! Participants dissect a Carolina’s Perfect Solution® pig by modeling the protocols of a forensic pathologist.

Come explore the fundamentals of coding with Vernier. In this hands-on session, use your science, mathematics, and problem-solving skills to navigate mBot, an app-enabled, programmable robot. Come learn to connect Vernier sensors to Scratch, a popular block-based programming language. Coding makes a wonderful supplement to the traditional science course.

We will bring science and coding together as participants learn to do some basic coding (no experience necessary) while developing a mood ring! The science of color mixing is explored while determining the right body temperature thresholds. Is fuchsia flirty? Should green be groovy? It's up to you!

Be sure to stop by for this special session. Come “meet and greet” your elected NSTA officers on your way to the exhibits. The President, President-Elect, and Retiring President along with your Board and Council members are looking forward to talking with you at the conference! We will be giving away several gift cards for use in the NSTA Store totaling $100. Must be present to win. Drawing will take place at 3:20 PM.

We will combine biology and coding to create an artificial heart! With some basic materials, you will construct a four-chambered heart and then innervate it with an artificial nervous system. From there, write some very simple code (no coding experience required) to bring the heart to life! If time permits, you will also create an AED (automated external defibrillator)! Appropriate for middle school and high school.

Learn the basics of collecting and analyzing experimental data with a focus on chemisty. Bring your own device with our Graphical Analysis 4 app installed or use ours during the workshop. All activities are available as a free download for attendees.

Students have major misconceptions about photosynthesis and cellular respiration, but this content is essential for understanding how matter and energy flows, both at the micro (cellular) and macro (ecosystem) levels. Using a computer simulation, a hands-on activity, and notebooking/ discussion strategies, expose student thinking—all from SEPUP’s new Science and Global Issues: Biology program from Lab-Aids.

With rising greenhouse gases, bioengineers apply observations in mushroom ecology toward finding a biofuel solution. In this hands-on workshop, use an inquiry-based approach as you extract enzymes from mushrooms and optimize reaction rates for biofuel production.

Students can learn much more from a traditional titration when rapid data collection allows for the easy determination of the equivalence point. Spend more time developing the concept and less time waiting for a color change. Use wireless devices to make difficult concepts easy to understand in the lab. Participants will enjoy the opportunity to explore different ways titrations and technology can change the way our students learn about acids and bases.

Pour, load, run, and analyze a gel using the affordable, lightning-fast MiniOne electrophoresis system to solidify the theoretical teaching of Mendelian genetics in this engaging workshop! See how hands-on experience with gel electrophoresis gets students excited and inspired by molecular biology.

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.

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!

How can scientists tell what Earth’s climate was like thousands of years before human measurements? This activity simulates the use of fossil ocean foraminifera, tiny organisms whose growth patterns are different in warm or cold water. Analyze and graph samples of replicas of these organisms to determine relative warm and cold periods in the past 200,000 years. This activity is from EDC Earth Science, a new NSF-supported high school program from Lab-Aids.

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.

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.