Session Browser

Ticket Price: $78 advance; $83 on-site

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

Come enjoy an evening of celebration with the 2020 NSTA Teacher Award Recipients and your colleagues. This year, we are trying something new! There will be two ways for you to enjoy the evening:

• First, you may purchase a gala ticket, which allows entry for the entire affair, including the three-course Banquet and Awards ceremony.
• Or, if you just want to support a colleague and see them receive their award, then you are welcome to attend just the Awards ceremony, which begins after the dinner has concluded. Doors will open at 6:50 PM for the presentation of awards. No ticket is required for this portion of the evening, but there will be a cash bar available for your enjoyment.

Reach for the Stars is an NSF-supported program that developed short lessons for introducing computational modeling into middle school and high school science classes. Walk through one of these lessons, and learn more about this free online resource.

Thoughtful lab renovations require collaboration between teachers, administrators, and architects. We will highlight specific design elements, lessons we learned, and ways to maximize stakeholders’ expertise.

With recent STEM initiatives, science leaders/teachers have new responsibilities in promoting safer teaching/learning activities when integrating engineering practices within makerspaces, labs, and other learning environments.

Learn how the STEMAZing Teacher Leader Program has been empowering preK–12 classroom educators to take on leadership roles, while remaining in the classroom.

#allstandardsallstudents is of paramount importance in the Next Generation Science Standards. Join us as we analyze current systems of inequity in schools, reflect on implicit bias that affects student outcomes, and discuss key instructional strategies for every student, including our most vulnerable student populations.

Join us as we chronicle the three-year journey of successes and missteps of one science instructional coach from NGSS novice to three-dimensional capacity-building in a large urban district.

The ACS ChemClub program provides free fun and educational materials! Learn about the program, try out a few activities, and take home some resources.

Dive into a real science classroom and three examples of project-based learning in a grade 9 physics class with a focus on the successes and pitfalls of each project and how they have evolved over time. Come away with resources on how to start and create successful PBL projects.

A team of education, theater, broadcast journalism, and graphic design experts from Northwestern University teamed up to teach communication skills to STEM PhD students. This session is a mini-version of one of their workshops.

Ticket Price: $50; with conference registration

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

Citizen science offers a supportive framework to engage in science investigations that are grounded in real-world observation, contributing to and building on locally relevant questions, and to work with real-world data to draw evidence-based conclusions. Through these learning experiences, students build science practices, data fluency, and critical-thinking skills in an authentic and engaging way. This PLI engages participants in models of data learning taken from multiple citizen science contexts and leveraging multiple technology tools that support work with large and complex datasets.

Ticket Price: $50; with conference registration

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

Do you need a middle school curriculum that is designed to address the NGSS?  In this half-day institute, presenters introduce a 10-week online curriculum that is free and has received a high rating from the EQuIP Peer Review Panel. As students complete the unit, they answer the question, How can a problem in one body system cause symptoms in other body systems? Come explore the unit and learn about the real-world phenomenon that anchors the learning, as well as the supports for teachers and students. Leave with full access to the unit.

Bring STEM to life as participants use engineering and coding skills (no experience necessary) to learn how cardiologists use technology to keep their patients alive.

Hear how industry and education came together to bring real biomedical research to all students through Interactive Reading Passages.

Get some flipping basics and then discover how this allowed more time for students to engage in authentic, three-dimensional learning.

Ticket Price: $125; with conference registration

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

A Framework for K–12 Science Education advocates a three-dimensional approach to teaching science that integrates disciplinary core ideas, crosscutting concepts, and science and engineering practices. But we need to leverage a fourth dimension—discourse—to effectively engage our nation’s fastest-growing group of students: English language learners and multilingual learners (MLLs). Presenters will offer approaches, applicable for grades K–20, for engaging MLLs with their peers in the exciting and complex reasoning and discourse of science. Presenters will highlight the importance of experiential work and key language practices to simultaneously increase students’ effectiveness in scientific reasoning and language use.

Are your students effective and compelling science storytellers? Gain classroom-ready resources to help students communicate scientific information with narrative structure across a variety of media.

Experience students’ personal watershed stories centered on ecological assessments through citizen science projects focused on water quality and biodiversity monitoring, community engagement, and Esri StoryMaps.

Music motivates and fascinates, but it also fosters STEM learning. Come share lessons that weave science, mathematics, and engineering. Catch a wave, then explore MP3s, sound mixing, assistive devices, Humpback whale romance, and even a classic sea monster. No expensive equipment required.

Join us as we share how we have engaged students through rich phenomena based on stars and exoplanets within a free NGSS-driven unit.

When students use online simulations to explore topics in biology, chemistry, physics, and more, conceptual understanding soars and science comes to life. Experience a food chain lesson using simulations, and learn how to incorporate them into your classrooms with iPads, interactive whiteboards, or a computer lab.

Switch your students’ focus from chasing points to chasing science learning with individualized final exams that allows to demonstrate how far they have come.

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

Practice activities with simple classroom materials that explore the EM Spectrum, detection technology, and explanatory models, as well as illustrate real-world applications in space science.

Discoveries in Earth Science program provides a unique opportunity for students with blind or visual impairments to learn, conduct, and design Earth science investigations.

Discover how collaborative mapping and STEM design strategies can connect students to sea level rise issues in their communities and inspire them to action.

Discover interdisciplinary lessons for exploring the causes and effects of our global population’s growing demand for water resources. Engage in simulations matched to NGSS.

Explore strategies to modify storylining for the inclusive classroom. Testimonies from biology and special education teachers who have implemented a storyline approach to bring NGSS to students with learning needs.

Come experience and learn about invention projects designed to engage learners in grades 7–10 in interdisciplinary and culturally relevant ways.

Encourage students’ creativity, develop subject matter mastery and scientific habits of mind through the creation of personalized exhibits using NASA’s Universe of Learning resources.

Want to inspire your students to use science to change the world? Then come join two veteran international travel educators to learn to start the fire with details about planning and implementing scientific field study trips to places like Bermuda, Costa Rica, and Iceland.

Ticket Price: $180; with conference registration

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

The NSTA Atlas of the Three Dimensions maps the elements of the core ideas, practices, crosscutting concepts, connections to nature of science, connections to engineering, and performance expectations described in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and other standards based on A Framework for K–12 Science Education. Applying the same techniques used to develop AAAS Project 2061’s Atlas of Science Literacy, the 62 maps in this new Atlas show how the elements of the dimensions relate to and build on one another. Learn how the Atlas was developed and how you can use it to support your work in curriculum, instruction, and assessment by gaining a deeper understanding of the progressions and connections in the standards. All attendees receive a copy of the Atlas.

Are you noticing students come into high school with gaps in their science knowledge? Come learn how to help students engage in three dimensional activities to “close the gaps” in their science knowledge and practices.

By Invitation Only

We will showcase a number of collaborative experiences that teachers can use to promote more meaningful STEM projects and understandings among students. Discussion centers on classroom collaborations, international exchanges, virtual exchange projects, and adaptations to STEM projects.

Learn how OpenSciEd aims to improve science education through the development and implementation of high-quality, freely available, science instructional materials, and associated professional learning materials.

Explore classroom routines embedded in the OpenSciEd units that use student questions to drive the direction of students’ investigations and knowledge building.

Learn, interact, and discuss application of a strand map and hyperlinked concept map to teach weather/climate concepts in grades 6–12 classrooms. Bring a laptop/tablet.

Car science for the non-automotive teacher. Fuel goes in and H₂0 and CO₂ leave. Hear how emission systems and hybrid technology are changing the way we drive.

Explore how students who are still learning English will flourish using the investigative and problematizing routines embedded within the OpenSciEd Instructional Model.

In this hands-on two-hour session, participants will experience part of the thermal energy unit and walk away with access to the teacher and student versions.

In this hands-on two-hour session, participants will experience part of the metabolic reactions unit and walk away with access to the teacher and student versions.

We will share culturally responsive teaching strategies to make teaching and learning more engaging and personable for students. The focus is to combine ancient Chinese art and puzzles into our STEM lessons with NGSS in mind.

Dive into the data and information collected through the OpenSciEd field test. See how the wisdom from teachers and students informs the materials.

Use free curriculum resources and tools to support equitable instruction by focusing on student resources to build science ideas within a classroom community.

Come see examples from a free curriculum that supports students in using evidence to explain phenomena and to figure out where to go next.

Ticket Price: $125; with conference registration

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

This full-day institute prepares participants to use tools developed by the NextGen Science Storylines project to teach with, adapt, or design NGSS storylines that are coherent from the student''s perspective. In a coherent storyline, students help plan and manage investigations rather than simply follow instructions. Storylines support students in developing ideas over time, motivated by questions about real-world phenomena and problems, where each step is an attempt to address a question or gap in the classroom’s current explanations or design solutions. These tools help participants analyze or develop units that incorporate the teaching strategies needed for coherent storylines, and have been used to design four middle school and high school units (from NextGen Storylines and OpenSciEd) that have been awarded Achieve’s NGSS Design Badge.

Explore the strategies used to sequence middle school performance expectations so students incrementally build disciplinary core ideas, practices, and crosscutting concepts across units and years.

Search for temporal and spatial patterns by analyzing 35 years of data on global bleaching events and heat stress due to climate change.

In this hands-on two-hour session, participants will experience part of the sound waves unit and walk away with access to the teacher and student versions.

Leave with resources for the selection, launch, and support of OpenSciEd instructional materials for your school or school system.

Scientists bounce among practices to answer questions, and then create coherent stories to communicate their research. We provide scaffolds for students to do the same.

Each OpenSciEd has a set of free PD materials, including agendas, slides, videos, and handouts. Join us and explore the suite of resources.

Increase your ability to use anchoring phenomena throughout entire units meaningfully. Explore resources from a free online curriculum to support continued sensemaking surrounding the anchor.

Learn how to integrate conservation, ethics, and biotechnology into a biology classroom by using current research on African elephant conservation and a collaborative lab experience.

Build a family culture by incorporating 21st century learning objectives and make authentic connections that will empower your students.

OpenSciEd places a high value on teacher and student input. Participants will learn how insights from teachers and students have shaped OpenSciEd units.

Attention will be paid to the creation and implementation of inquiry-based activities in the co-taught classroom. We will provide examples for how to disseminate tasks and roles between both educators, in order to promote both teacher’s specialties within the classroom. Also cover principles of the universal design for learning in the science classroom.

Ticket Price: $125; with conference registration

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

Using technology in three-dimensional learning experiences can be truly transformative, empowering learners to discover the world for themselves. Concord Consortium experts guide participants through a series of interactive investigations using technologies ranging from probes and sensors, to data exploration tools, to flexible tools for modeling and simulation. In the process, participants observe how technology can make scientific phenomena more accessible and understandable and how the use of technology can personalize students’ learning. Participants gain experience with free tools they can use for their own teaching and develop a research-based understanding of the importance of investigation and modeling that can make all their science lessons more engaging and effective.

Investigate ways to incorporate STEM topics into the hunt for disease. Case studies to Microbits help engage students in tracking the transmission of disease.

By Invitation Only

Stop by booth #3412 to win tickets to Twig Education's CASINO NIGHT. Join us for fun, food, and prizes!

Abandon traditional assessments and instead improve them with opportunities for students to communicate learning about physical kinematic models with free-writing and lab activities. Come find out how.

Find out about building a partnered STEM program between high school and elementary, including getting high school students interested, picking an elementary partner, finding funding, STEM rally, on-site teaching day, and hosted days.

Hear how to bring live exploration in national marine sanctuaries to students. Live programming connects students to research, technology, and experts to explore our ocean.

Want to develop a better understanding of a coherent science curriculum? Journey with us as we engage in NGSS three-dimensional learning from instruction to assessment.

Come learn how to incorporate peer assessment into your NGSS classroom! Peer assessment is an exciting tool to engage students in scientific discussion and critique.

Explore strategies, successes, and challenges in building instructional units around phenomena in high school biology and chemistry examples. Brainstorm phenomena and how to use them in your own units.

Munch and mingle with other science educators from the great State of Maine! Join us for food, networking, and great conversation.

Bring national marine sanctuaries to your classroom through the use of 360º media. Through this virtual resource, students dive into national marine sanctuaries through various devices.

So you have this great idea! Now what? Learn from present and past STEM Forum & Expo steering committee members on how to take a successful classroom activity, strategy, or lesson and turn that into a successful proposal and presentation worthy of being presented at a future NSTA conference.

How do we make time for student acquisition of the science practices as required by NGSS and AP? The answer is flipped and active chemistry!

Discussion centers on why girls’ and minorities’ interest in science declines throughout their educational careers. Leave with strategies to combat this.

We will identify disciplinary literacy habits needing explicit instruction, discuss how to incorporate disciplinary literacy strategies into existing content instruction, and the research guiding our literacy work.

Secondary students explore water business, politics, and usage. Discussion centers on arguments in the water crisis and if water is a commodity or a human right.

Challenging beliefs about the abilities of students of color in science classrooms, the goal is to reach beyond  perceived deficits and inspire students to succeed.

Looking to build or update a makerspace or STEM lab to provide more effective real-world student experiences? View innovative models with critical safety controls.

Using 3D printers is a great way to engage students in an authentic STEM project using modeling while incorporating all three dimensions in the NGSS.

Discussion centers on ways to use smartphones in the lab for observations and data collection.

Explore Springfield Public School’s journey of building an environmental science college and career pathway through community partnerships. Learn about curriculum, field experiences, and funding resources.

Attention will be paid to the three dimensions in NGSS through the use of a model storyline focused on melanin and albinism that integrates genetics, evolution, as well as ecological and molecular concepts.

Get students engaged in understanding human impact with a city simulation. Students choose population, energy, food, transportation, and waste management to make a sustainable city.

The K–12 Framework specifically calls for three-dimensional teaching and learning to address persistent inequalities in science education. Hear how to bring NGSS and CRP strategies together.

Explore a workforce development model that includes how NSF’s big ideas—convergence, Big Data, and competencies are critical to success in STEM careers.

We will focus on engaging students through the practice of constructing explanations using a teaching case with readings, videos, and online datasets.

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

Hear how we include students, parents, the PTA, local businesses, and scientists in our districtwide K–12 school makerfaire. Learn how to set up a makerspace, see a variety of possible projects, and find out how to showcase projects in your school makerfaire.

Emphasis will be placed on findings and teaching strategies used in secondary science that foster students discourse of controversial topics related to race and human diversity.

Probe how astrobiologists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory are searching for signs of life on icy moons of our solar system.

Denver Public Schools will share its teacher-driven process for selecting NGSS-focused curricula, highlighting the embedded professional learning for committee members.

Join us for topics and tips for creating teacher-initiated student chemistry notebooks for beginner to AP chemistry classes.

Explore a simple intervention to improve science identity. Emphasis will be placed on the research, the results, and collaboration of kindergarten through graduate educators.

A collaboration between our math and science department will showcase how data visualization software helps students with learning differences through an integrated approach.

Come discover how a suburban district in New York has science teachers working collaboratively K–12 to develop an engaging and cohesive science narrative.

Discussion centers on how a standards-based chemistry classroom built on the science and engineering practices engages in evidence-based reporting and assesses our students on SEPs throughout the curriculum.

Put on your student hat for an engaging mini lesson and then join us as we break down the components of a successful task!