Session Browser

In partnership with individual Educational Service Districts, Washington Green Schools (WGS) is sparking climate science knowledge and action in diverse schools across the state.

Explore the parallel processes in science and literacy learning for young students that helps to build capacity for lifelong learning in both areas. Handouts.

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.

Find out how to blend career-connected learning with science learning using a suite of career awareness and exploration resources featuring diverse STEM professionals and STEM workplaces.

Students see themselves reflected in phenomena-based science curricula. Receive replicable units and guidelines for life science curriculum that centers students’ identity and investment.

Beyond posting pictures of classroom activities, how can you harness the power of social media to enhance your lessons for 21st-century science?

Journals, notebooks, and trade books are featured in outdoor science lessons—with indoor options. Use work samples and kids books to learn how. Free seeds.

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.

Port Townsend School District will share their process for building ocean acidification projects in collaboration with community partners, teachers, and students at multiple grade levels.

Learn how to conduct three high-interest lab activities that give students experience in hypothesis formation, experimental design, data collection, and interpretation.

Shelton School District students participate in outdoor learning experiences every year. Find out how these experiences prepare grades 5–8 students for high school STEM pathways in the natural sciences.

The Boeing Academy for STEM Learning at The Museum of Flight in Seattle presents best practices and tips on how to facilitate relationships between STEM companies and professionals and an educational organizations.

Explore citizen-science projects that can engage diverse students, especially girls, in authentic data collection and inspire scientific investigations.

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.

Explore and discuss strategies for deepening the NGSS competencies of secondary science through ongoing PD with a focus on meeting teacher PD needs using data collection and learning progressions to shift teacher practice.

Teachers from Beijing middle and secondary STEM schools will demonstrate unique integrated projects and activities. Participants will be actively engaged in model lessons that authentically include all STEM components.

Find out how to develop escape room games in your classroom to engage your students!

Experience hands-on, integrated sound activities that include science, technology, engineering, math, ELA, social studies, and art. This presentation will showcase first-grade lessons that captured the imagination of primary age learners.

Come engage in a quick engineering challenge that demonstrates how your students can define problems, create criteria and constraints, and engage in evidence-based engineering argumentation.

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

Join us to explore permeable and impermeable surfaces with a science and math integrated activity used to engage learners in locally relevant, watershed-based investigations.

Join us to learn how to anchor student learning in hyper-local and relevant phenomena using the anchoring phenomenon routine.

Explore the concepts of metabolic budgets and oxygen minimum zones and how human activities may be affecting organisms that live in these extreme environments.

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.

Attention will be paid on identifying theories and specific STEM activities that may be applied within preschool classrooms to promote children’s development.

Come learn about a partnership between the North Cascades Institute, Western Washington University, and Bellingham Public Schools to support students in learning about forest ecosystems. We’ll share lesson plans and lessons learned!

How might we engage students who seem uninterested in science? Join Nalini as she describes her approach of “tapestry thinking,” weaving the ecological values of the tropical rainforest trees she has studied for three decades with other societal values, such as sports, religion, the arts, and social justice. Her programs inspire a sense of wonder and stewardship for forests and nature in groups who do not or cannot gain access traditional venues for science education. She has engaged urban children, faith-based groups, policy-makers, incarcerated adults, and youth in custody by partnering with “ambassadors” of these groups and then bringing engagement events to the venues where they naturally gather. Similarly, formal science educators might find common ground with their unengaged students by recognizing and weaving their students’ passions with the scientific way of knowing to create an inclusive tapestry of understanding of our world.

NSTA wishes to thank National Geographic Learning | Cengage for sponsoring this speaker.

By investigating and sharing solutions for coexisting with local carnivores, grade 6 students strengthen their ability to ask and answer their questions about the natural world.

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.

Join us in sharing your concerns and resources for enhancing equity and access in science education programs. Learn what NSTA, and others, are doing for STEM equity nationwide.

Explore the practice of modeling as a high-leverage strategy to engage students in questioning, discourse, scientific reasoning, and explanation of phenomena.

The Department of Homeland Security supports several cybersecurity and STEM education programs, including free K–12 cybersecurity curricula and cybersecurity degree programs at postsecondary institutions.

Construct different sized whirligigs (paper helicopters) and collect data on the flight of each. This is an introduction to the opportunity for independent student exploration.

Hear about characteristics of quality STEM instruction through the use of an observation protocol designed to improve practice.

Track an osprey’s migration from Massachusetts to South America using uploaded data from the osprey’s transmitter and explore the trade book written about the journey.

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

Preview the latest book in the Uncovering Student Ideas in Science series—with a STEM focus on engineering and technology. Experience a variety of probes that can be used to inform STEM teaching and support student and teacher learning.

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.

Participants of the Teacher Innovator Institute will share projects developed using resources from the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

Hear about Northwest LASER Alliance’s multi-district process of transitioning our Science Materials Kit Cooperative toward materials that integrate the three dimensions of NGSS.

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. Info will be provided by dropbox.

Explore modeling as a formative tool for responsive instruction by examining student artifacts before and after an instructional shift based on analysis of student understanding.

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.

44% of bee colonies in the U.S. collapsed in 2016! Come enhance your STEAM curriculum through environmental and media literacy. Let’s save the bees together!

Analyze and interpret ocean depths to plot sea surface height. Practice making two-dimensional data become three-dimensional; in turn, bolstering visual-spatial conception skills.

Explore strategies through interactive activities and discussion that support success in reading science nonfiction and, most importantly, scientific inquiry.

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.

Using the LOC digitized primary sources, participants will create an activity that helps students engage in learning, develop critical thinking skills, and construct knowledge.

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

Watch out Darwin’s finches, a brighter bird is the new biology teacher in town! Learn to teach evolution and natural selection through the birds-of-paradise.

Through natural selection, populations change over time. These materials explore how, over longer time frames, the very same processes underlie speciation. https://teach.genetics.utah.edu/content/evolution/speciation

The effects of Western science subculture on Indigenous students bid us to get to know our students better by exploring culture in the science classroom.

Ticket Price: $33 advance; $38 on-site

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

Have you ever wondered how people can transform plain water and a few simple ingredients into the vast array of spirituous beverages enjoyed by people all over the world? For most of human history, fermentation has been an integral part of our culture. On this tour, you will explore the fascinating fermentation process of in-depth brewing. This expedition will take you to one of Seattle’s most iconic beverage production facilities, Hale’s Ales Brewery in the historic Ballard neighborhood. You will learn firsthand from master brewers how biology, chemistry, and physics converge in the different processes of brewing beer. You will dive into topics such as yeast microbiology, enzyme action, carbon dioxide production, and water chemistry. By the end of the tour, you will be a fermentation aficionado, having mastered the difference between lagers and ales, as well as how the treatment of the raw ingredients affect the final flavors. The tour will finish with a sensory analysis of products guided by trained olfactory experts and a tasting.

Note: Must be of legal drinking age, 21 or older. ID required to participate.

Meet your educational trip leader at the 9th Avenue and Pike Street entrance of the Washington State Convention Center at least 15 minutes before departure time.

Use culturally responsive practices to promote discussion, critical thinking, and literacy in a middle school genetics unit.

Explore a professional learning experience for principal–teacher teams that supports equitable teaching practices for students underrepresented in STEM through shared learning and action planning.

Come learn about the journey of building an exciting summer school experience that reaches beyond the classroom where students are excited to attend. Get tips and tricks to make your students’ educational experience impactful and transformative.

Learn how to create a STEM Seminar where teachers explore how climate change impacts their local community and develop authentic climate science classroom learning opportunities.

Designed for PD providers and educators, attention will be paid to protocols for writing three-dimensional NGSS-focused formative assessment items. Correlations will be made to Washington State’s summative assessment.

Discussion centers on the recently released report by NSF on Science and Engineering for Grades 6–12 focusing on the recommendations for how students engage with investigation and design as well as how teachers support this experience.

Engage in a 3-D learning activity that highlights integral components of the NGSS: modeling, discourse, and supports for English language learners.

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.

Discussion centers on design-based biotechnology problem scenarios for designing and constructing biotechnical systems demonstrating how imposed cognitive demands promote critical thinking and understanding of STEM content/practice.

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.

Join in to discover methods to overcome common student misconceptions and participate in a “hands on” activity involving a chemical equilibrium having a large K value.

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.

Students learn how to collaborate and build relationships in their community as they become citizen scientists, while tracking pollinators and problem-solve using Problem-Based Learning.

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

Explore exemplary, open-source science materials grounded in research regarding what motivates student learning. These materials engage students in authentic, relevant, three-dimensional learning of scientific phenomenon.

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

We will share educational resources for connecting research vessels to ocean sciences, demonstrate exemplar activities, and present strategies using real-time data with students.

We will focus on understanding scientific concepts. Take away a technique you can use tomorrow.

Forget the textbook-defined sequence for teaching biology. Learn how to use the five criteria for life as a vehicle for introducing biology concepts.

We will share lessons we’ve learned in school-based makerspaces, the challenges of pushing students past tinkering, and practical strategies to engage them in engineering challenges.

The automobile is a high-tech rolling science and physics lab. This basic overview is designed for the nonautomotive science teacher to bring examples into the science classroom.

There is no such thing as a perfect curriculum! We will explore how engaging teachers in focused unit adaptation work is a pathway to strengthening teacher competencies around NGSS pedagogy and results in improved learning outcomes for students.

Breathing Easier is a place-based science curriculum that engages grade 3 students in learning about and taking action on local air quality issues.

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

Design thinking is a process designers have used for years to bring a product to the marketplace. Now this process is recognized in the classroom as a great tool to solve problems using four basic steps—Ideate, Prototype, Evaluate, and Build.

Receive an overview of a professional learning experience incorporating local contexts, experiential learning, and research-based materials as a model for developing STEM experiences for students.

Find out how students’ everyday practices and activities, such as play, gaming, learning from failure, and solving problems provide a strong foundation for learning science through engineering design.

Partnerships with Public Works Departments support teaching claims and evidence, integral parts of NGSS practices. Explore how to use storm drains to teach scientific argumentation.

Integrating interactive video lectures can promote student understanding and help increase assessment scores. Join in for lessons learned as well as challenges associated with implementing interactive video lectures.

Discover how to tailor anchor phenomenon to capture the attention of diverse learners.

One of the authors of the Picture-Perfect STEM series will share lessons that integrate STEM and literacy through engaging STEM-related picture books.

Hear about the benefits and limitations of using serious educational games and hands-on guided inquiry science activities in the classroom. Practitioners will use a game designed for the classroom and will be provided access to the game and the hands-on science activities for use in their own classroom.

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.

Learn effective techniques including Claims-Evidence-Reasoning to help students navigate media filled with fictional information promoted as fact and cherry-picked data offered as evidence.

Discussion centers on the historic and strategic trajectory of STEM education with the specific task of identifying and reinforcing key design principles.

?You are invited to partner with scientists, adventurers, and storytellers and discover how to captivate students in authentic, engaging and experiential STEM-based learning.

Structuring classes as realistic, simulated mission experiences promotes teamwork, communication, problem-solving, and critical thinking skills as diverse students imagine themselves in collaborative STEM careers.

Attention will be paid to effective ways to integrate cross-curricular learning with science and integrated STEM instruction, to optimize student learning and maximize opportunities to deepen understanding, yielding added time for science and STEM exploration and considerations of career possibilities.

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

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.

We will share our collaborative process designing a program that teaches academic content, hard skills, and social-emotional skills. Leave with project examples and more.

Discover how we adapted our chemistry curriculum to reach diverse learners using budget-friendly manipulatives. Participants will try out many of the techniques shared.

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.

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

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.

Explore how to use student-centered learning such as engineering challenges to empower students and foster a love of science in a Title I middle school.

Experience multi-modal 5Es brain-based vocabulary strategies designed to empower all learners by using their own experiences to define core concepts through inquiry and discussions.

Engage in the engineering design cycle while exploring four principles of flight and experiencing language enhancement strategies to take back to the classroom.

Hear about the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Project-Based Science framework for inspiring the conservation of the ocean through developing a sense of agency in local environmental action projects.

Become ocean explorers, learn how we study where we cannot see. The curriculum integrates STEAM to increase a sense of discovery that promotes deep learning.

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.

Data Nuggets are free resources designed to guide students through the process of science. They can be used to improve students’ scientific and quantitative skills.

The emergence of advanced technology in the field of education, especially science, comes with both advantages and disadvantages. How do we limit the disadvantages?

Having students create a (YouTube) video lab conclusion is a powerful assessment tool that can improve an instructor’s assessment of student understanding. Discussion centers on the benefits associated with integrating student video conclusion into lab reports, the value of requiring students to actively engage with the lab objective and its analysis, and the additional time required to grade the videos.

What are middle school students trying to tell us about the interactions they know they must take to keep balance with dynamic ecosystems in constant change?

Incorporate STEM into your classroom by adding a makerspace. Increase engineering, inquiry-based learning, metal elasticity, and creativity! It’s easy and fun!

Hear from a mentorship specialist how to leverage to power of mentorship to engage the next generation of STEM leaders.

Learn more about native bees and how your students can help bees from the author of the NSTA Press book, Next Time You See a Bee.

Using the Design Thinking process, students investigate a local environmental problem, develop empathy for those affected, and create prototypes to work toward a possible solution.

Instill student passion in science through Problem-Based Enhanced Language Learning. Come experience PBELL as a way to become a learning facilitator and engage even the most reluctant science student! Help students discover their passion for science by taking charge of their own learning.

Want to get your students outside enjoying nature and taking an active interest in improving the world around us, but don’t know where to start and how to sustain it? Join in for strategies to encourage critical thinking about environmental issues, methods to help students gain awareness of everyday resources and uses, budgeting and funding procedures, and ways to meet multiple subject areas. Empower your students to become part of the solution!

Experience a high school curriculum that is three-dimensional and centered around phenomena. This important work is shared as an Open Education Resource (OER) so all districts can benefit.

We will explore how to help students connect amino acid sequence to protein structure and function, and try out some of the modeling activities. Resources used will be shared.

Hear about the goals and design principles of a engineering design challenge, based around creating a prosthetic hand using a variety of low-cost materials.

Learn how Capitol Land Trust and Shelton School District have partnered for three years to engage students in authentic problems related to habitat restoration and environmental stewardship.

We describe our development process, successes, and challenges in establishing a cross-curricular environmental program built by and for teachers and community partners.

Discover how to integrate engineering design challenges into an NGSS curriculum. Using the science and engineering practices, students engage in authentic problem solving.

NSTA and ASTE have developed a new set of preparation standards for science teachers. Join a discussion on the implication and application of these standards.

From helping to determine the time of a victim’s death to analyzing DNA samples from crime suspects, this workshop has it all! Come get your hands wrapped around the STEM of crime solving!

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.

Introduction to both the engineering design process and technology are incorporated to address the NGSS and CCSS Math within a STEM investigation.

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 and design and implement an engineering design challenge. Hands-on activities and sample projects provided.

Beyond motivation, music is a phenomenon that includes all the elements of STEM. Go beyond “good vibrations” to sampling, mixing, spectrograms, and musical problem-solving.

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

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

Our NSF-funded project helps non-programming teachers integrate Arduino and Raspberry Pi into their classes through problem-based challenges. Free resources, and BYOD for some programming fun.

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.

Find out how starting a pen pal program with your students can help make curriculum relevant while improving student writing, reading, and interpersonal skills.

A thriving community of physics educators exists on social media, sharing ideas and giving support. Come find out the great people and ideas to follow!

Designing and using student voice surveys to inform teachers and change instruction to increase STEM career aspirations for students.

From matter to energy, any course can integrate climate change successfully. Leave with free CLEAN lesson plans and other vetted materials to enhance your teaching. CLEAN stands for Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network.

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

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

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.

Hear about professional recognition and development, connections and community with like-minded educators, and relationships, resources, and perks from the National Geographic Society.

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

Hear about a conversion of a typical grade 7 life science program into a CTE human body systems program that uses community partnerships to enhance 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.

How can we apply our rapidly-expanding knowledge of how the brain works to improve science learning (and teaching)? Join in and find out.

Discussion centers on the benefits of teaching science as inquiry and how to create classroom environments that embrace inquiry. Attention will be paid to hands-on explorations, coupled with literacy and thinking skills, to advance learning, engagement, and the joys of achievement in science.

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

Teams of students can build simulation models to study news topics. Topics must contain dynamic feedback between two interconnected concepts (forces/animals/enzymes/resources). Lesson sequence explained.

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!

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

Learn how to create multidimensional tasks that leverage diverse expertise—supporting all learners in STEM activities. Engage in a cafeteria redesign project that will make everyone an innovator!

Put the textbook away and get out an…antler! Pinecone! Rock! Explore how object-based inquiry can open up learning—and enjoyment—for all students.

Explore engineering with an underwater remote-operated vehicle (ROV) project. Witness collaboration between military/industry and school partnership to design, test, and use an ROV.

Explore a novel “Systems Medicine” curriculum to teach students how science and technology are integrated to optimize current health and future wellness.

Robert will share the promising career pathways work underway in such diverse places as New York City, California’s Central Valley, and the states of Arizona and Delaware. He will touch on the challenges inherent in engaging regional leaders from K–12 and postsecondary education, the workforce system, employer associations, and youthserving community organizations to work collaboratively to create the kind of opportunity structure for young people that can get them started on a successful career trajectory. Hear about the power of networks in advancing professional learning and building a new field of practice.

Hear how Calapooia Watershed Council and Greater Albany Public Schools have partnered to provide an Outdoor School program for all grade 6 students.

We will share ways our school’s STEAM culture engages all students. Leave with ideas for small interventions that make big impacts.

Hear about strategic activities that establish place-based relevance to local and global environmental issues by connecting students and communities through the use of technology. Building on students’ capacity for compassion, creativity, and current level of applied technological understanding, incorporating technology in environmental education supports the facilitation of project-based collaboration using an active, problem-centered approach.

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.

Elementary and middle school teachers will discuss what they learned from spending a summer with engineers and how they applied it to their classrooms.

Shelton School District students participate in outdoor learning experiences every year. Find out how grades K–4 students learn to love science through exciting standards-based field investigations.

NSTA’s Position Statement, “Teaching Climate Science,” guides professional learning for chemistry and physics teachers. Teachers study atmospheric science and public opinion to design learning.

Hear how six high school teachers created a required, project-based, NGSS-focused physics course using fun, hands-on vehicle and space exploration-themed projects to engage ALL learners.

STEM projects are vocational training for future scientists, engineers, and researchers. Part 2 covers organization and presentation of results, and aspects of competition judging or grading.

After years of classroom experience and professional microscopy education, the most common issues that hamper teacher/student success when using the microscope have been resolved.

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!

During embryogenesis, the sense of touch is the first to go “online” in the developing fetus. Later, touching objects and being touched by others are essential experiences for healthy brain development. Despite the recent advances in technology, experiential learning should not be considered “optional” for classroom instruction and normal child development.

Take part in a number of authentic and engaging investigative activities that exemplify specific science practices such as planning and carrying out investigations and analyzing and interpreting data—that are effective, fun, and relevant.

Come learn how to teach data collection, analysis, and recording for preschool and elementary-aged children. Take away tools to design and implement lab notebooks.

Using interesting phenomena, attention will be paid to increasing student engagement in class through academic talk. We will look at how “talk” improves student thinking in scientific arguments, as well as models.

Generate new learning by having your school as a living laboratory, introducing students to ways we use energy as they explore thermal energy transfer, electricity, lighting, and more!

Turn climate complexities and data into empowering instruction about wildfires. Lessons from the National Center for Science Education will strengthen students as information consumers.

Join us in a hands-on learning experience, using food to teach science standards and integrate CCSS principles. Handouts and door prizes included!

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.

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

Discussion centers on integration of STEM disciplines for grades 3–8 students, analyzing shapes, constructing physical structures, and creating with robotic devices, to advance learning and ignite engagement, critical thinking, and creativity. Handouts.

Learn strategies to excite young learners in STEM experiences integrating NGSS/CCSS-ELA and Math to support rigorous learning. Leverage community partnerships to strengthen STEM instruction regionally.

We will explore our school’s makerspace journey, from our space’s creation in 2016 to today. Focus will be on teacher support and project selection.

Hear about a community partnership working together to solve practical local issues that impact everyone. 

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

Discover how the history of a Gilded Age mansion named Belcourt becomes the context for an inquiry-based investigation of geothermal energy.

Partners in Science Program provides high school science teachers with scientific research experience, a stipend, and professional development for incorporating scientific research into their classrooms.

Our NSF-funded project helps non-programming teachers integrate Arduino and Raspberry Pi into their classes. Get free resources and hear our pilot teachers share their stories.

The Advanced Self-Powered Systems of Integrated Sensors and Technologies (ASSIST) at NC State University engages teachers in a summer research experience where teachers develop STEM PBL lesson plans incorporating wearable sensing devices.

We will explore the many faces of “phenomenon,” the why and where/when it belongs in the instructional cycle.

Concerned about the achievement gap? Learn about the latest data and experience a strategy for facilitating equity conversations, which enhance students’ STEM achievement and leadership skills.

Simple demonstrations, labs, and activities bring polymers into your curriculum that are STEM relevant. Concepts include formation, classification, structure, and properties. NGSS correlations.

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.

The Under-Representation Curriculum uses the tools of STEM to address equity and inclusion. Discover how to modify it for use in your classroom.

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 take part in great  K–3 activities, fully integrated with some of the best literature around. 

In the summer of 2017, Orange County Schools (a small, rural district in North Carolina), launched a three-year-long, grant-funded summer camp for elementary students in Title 1 schools. Come hear how the camps engaged students in diverse STEM activities while removing the barriers to participation, such as money or transportation. Leave with ideas of how to create and manage a similar summer opportunity for your students.

Discover the enormous potential for data collection, analysis, and student lab reporting with a digital laboratory. Handouts.

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.

Improve student engagement and success by incorporating interactive games in your science curriculum.

Participants will gain background information and engage in memorable activities on soil so they are more comfortable and enthsiastic about teaching the topic in their classrooms.

See how a simple visual chart can provide students the power to design and conduct their own investigations. Easily adapted for all grades.

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

Learn how to integrate the cultural resources your students bring to class with your science teaching and learning. Come explore equity-based cultural formative assessment.

Lifelong STEM learning is everywhere, but where and how do our students access rich STEM experiences? How can a painting or an event in history open the doors for students to think about STEM learning and career pathways? What does rainfall in the Pacific Northwest mean for the rest of the country? These different questions speak to STEM literacy, which is at the heart of lifelong learning. STEM learning improves the social, environmental, and economic conditions for our students’ future lives. How do we enhance, strengthen, and create systems to robustly ensure that all our students can participate?

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.

We will share frameworks for quality STEM curriculum and an overview of developing a conceptual flow graphic (CFG) for integrated STEM curriculum. Participants will learn how to identify quality STEM curriculum and how to modify curriculum to improve integration and conceptual flow. Sample classroom video will show using explicit language to help students see the integration between the STEM disciplines.

We will gather information on how to begin or grow science leadership at the school, district, or region/state level through a successful leadership program.

Looking for a way to introduce structure and functions? Use our book, Beaks of Birds.

Explore engaging curricula that highlight marine researchers and incorporate real data, while challenging students to think critically about important ocean issues, potential impacts, and solutions.

Come learn about professional development opportunities that will reinvigorate your teaching, allowing you to see science happening around the world.

We will share results and discuss implications from a faculty development program focused on developing student-centered teaching practices in introductory college-level STEM courses.

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.

We will share how using the scientific concept of basic needs helps young students build an understanding of human rights to inspire leadership and create solutions.

Teacher development and use of phenomena-anchored units that include a coherent storyline of NGSS-focused learning activities with evidence collection and sensemaking opportunities is essential to both teacher learning and successful implementation of NGSS in the classroom. We will use of a storylining tool that has been developed and refined through collaboration with research partners in the context of teacher professional development.

How do you ensure that the criteria used to evaluate instructional materials meets the most critical components of the NGSS dimensions and captures what district stakeholders value?

Help your students explore simple electrical circuits with this fun hands-on project. Students will be thrilled to design their bristlebot and watch it dance!

Discover NGSS-focused engineering design projects to bring neural engineering into your classroom. Local teachers will share Arduino microcontrollers, circuit boards, and an artificial neural network.

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

Incorporate coral reefs into your existing curriculum—biology, chemistry, climate studies, art, and more—using lesson plans, demos, labs, activities, and multimedia from NOAA.

Learn how to expand your ability to make sense of students’ responses in formative assessment to inform next steps of instruction in daily classroom activity.

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

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

Construct and investigate parachutes, providing the opportunity to do an exploration, while using and discussing skills necessary for successful science learning by your students.

Come hear how Washington State was able to design and implement an NGSS/Climate Science education program and network in under one year.

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.

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

District-level implementation of the new vision for science education is challenging. We will share our communication methods, PD models, data collection systems, and collaborations enacted to implement NGSS at K–12, highlighting both successes and challenges.

How can we ensure students are able to make sense and build understanding of disciplinary core ideas during instruction? Learn how to build and adapt existing lessons to follow a coherent conceptual storyline that draws on students’ prior knowledge and links activities and ideas together!

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.

Listen to our students’ voices: Who is inspired to pursue STEM-related careers? Who is doing and thinking like scientists and engineers?

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.

Techniques students can use with three-dimensional molecular models to understand isomerism in organic and biological molecules and how these are represented in two-dimensional drawings.

Probe how to create an astronomy course that meets NGSS and CTE standards, as well as earns university credits.

Discussion centers on ways to design an effective STEAM summer program to impact literacy rates in underrepresented populations. The intention is to equip students with the tools to be successful in STEM careers.

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.

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

Emphasis will be placed on how research practice partnerships that leverage cross-institutional resources
provide for ongoing, effective, data-informed, and collaborative teacher professional development are necessary to support and sustain the shifts in teaching practice required by NGSS.

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.

Emphasis will be placed on the current state of minorities in STEM careers and classroom resources and experiences to engage students in STEM.

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

Birds are a springboard for developing science and engineering practices. Explore hands-on activities, like designing a bird feeder, that will excite and challenge!