Session Browser

Engineering byDesign™ Grades 6–12 delivers technological and engineering literacy in STEM contexts. Hear how a 6E learning cycle (Evaluate, Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, Evaluate) guides students into innovation through engineering design.

Work with a team of architects to design a space that will best support STEM/STEAM learning outcomes. Explore best practices in the design of learning environments and study exemplar spaces for the teaching and learning of science.

Work with a team of architects to design a space that will best support STEM/STEAM learning outcomes. Explore best practices in the design of learning environments and study exemplar spaces for the teaching and learning of science.

Engineering byDesign™ Grades PreK–6 delivers technological and engineering literacy in STEM contexts. Hear how a 6E learning cycle (Evaluate, Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, Evaluate) guides students into innovation through engineering design.

Integrative STEM education offers engaging opportunities for all children through engineering for social good, computational thinking skills, and technological and engineering literacy.

Work with a team of architects to design a space that will best support STEM/STEAM learning outcomes. Explore best practices in the design of learning environments and study exemplar spaces for the teaching and learning of science.

What is your state doing to support computer science education? Hear from Arkansas’s Computer Science director for an interactive look at successful efforts, and how you can plan your work and work your plan!

Micro-credential programs are rapidly growing momentum in professional learning. Join us to learn about the STEM Micro-credential model used in Tennessee to identify and recognize educators in their commitment to teaching STEM and integrating strategies that ultimately prepare students for success in the 21st century.

Gain insights into convening key stakeholders to forge a regional STEM network that leverages existing assets to build capacity to support high-quality STEM education.

Students design a high school, to be built in 2050. The project incorporates site plans, floor plans, scale models, budgets, written proposals, and environmental concerns.  The student creativity is amazing!

As a field, we must capitalize on engaging students in meaningful grade-level mathematics  through integrated STEM learning experiences! We will examine how to inspire students through transformative learning experiences that rightfully positions mathematics as an essential component to solving problems to improve our world.

Today’s students face a future where there is an increasing need for mathematical skills in the workplace, especially in STEM-related careers. Come join the conversation around NCTM’s publication, Catalyzing Change in High School Mathematics, as we explore this idea.

Greater access to STEM, especially new approaches to STEM education, have the highest potential for improving outcomes for underserved students and narrowing the opportunity gap.

Mathematics teaching practices stimulate learners in thinking critically through rich tasks, engaging in discourse, and connecting and using representations.

Work with a team of architects to design a makerspace that will best support STEM/STEAM learning outcomes. Explore best practices in the design of learning environments and study exemplar spaces for the teaching and learning of science.

Broaden the STEM pipeline through engineering for social good with Engineering byDesign: vertical farming, hydroponics, modified ride-on electric cars for toddlers with disabilities, and more! 

You’re an expert science (STEM) teacher, now running a STEM lab or leading a STEM school. What makes excellent STEM teaching and learning? Join us and find out.

Computer science and computational thinking are pervasive throughout Engineering byDesign for Grades PreK–12: coding with Crumble, Texas Instruments Innovator Hub and Rover, automated hydroponics, and more!

Work with a team of architects to design a makerspace that will best support STEM/STEAM learning outcomes. Explore best practices in the design of learning environments and study exemplar spaces for the teaching and learning of science.

Work with a team of architects to design a makerspace that will best support STEM/STEAM learning outcomes. Explore best practices in the design of learning environments and study exemplar spaces for the teaching and learning of science.

Engage key stakeholders in initiatives to advance the future of STEM education and the STEM workforce. We will share examples of work underway in New York to engage parents, families, teachers, guidance counselors, colleges, and industry to expand pathways to STEM careers.

The need for STEM literacy—the ability to understand and apply concepts from science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in order to solve our nation’s most complex problems—is growing exponentially. The requirement for STEM literacy goes beyond the traditional STEM occupations of scientist, engineer, and mathematician. In addition, the United States and the Army have a growing need for highly qualified, STEM-literate technicians and skilled workers in advanced manufacturing, logistics, management, and other technology-driven fields.

For more than 50 years, the U.S. Army has supported a wide range of educational opportunities in STEM for our youth and undergraduate students, as well as our valued teachers. From elementary school through undergraduate school, students of all proficiency levels, interests, and social and economic backgrounds are encouraged to participate in real-world STEM experiences while also engaging with Army-sponsored mentors. The STEM programs offered include competitions, STEM enrichment programs, and opportunities for apprenticeships, internships and scholarships. More information is available at USAEOP.com.

A diverse panel of students from the U.S. Army Educational Outreach Program (AEOP) will describe:

• their experience with the AEOP programs they have participated in,
• the importance of STEM in their lives,
• the importance of STEM in their school experiences,
• how STEM will help them in their futures, and
• why they think STEM is important.

AEOP aims to provide both students and teachers with diverse opportunities that effectively engage, inspire, and attract the next generation of STEM talent and expose participants to Department of Defense (DoD) STEM careers.

Introductions and Moderator: Matt Hartman, eCYBERMISSION Educational Content Manager, U.S. Army Educational Outreach Program, NSTA, Arlington, Va.

Student Panelists: To be announced

Learn about an innovative partnership between industry and secondary and postsecondary education to strengthen the STEM pipeline. Hear representatives from Da Vinci Science High School, Northrop Grumman, and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo share the outcomes of this unique collaboration.

Moderator: Regina Schofield, Director, Corporate Engagement & Education Outreach, Battelle, Arlington, VA

Panelists:

• David Burns, Director, STEM Innovation Networks, Ohio STEM Learning Network/Battelle, Columbus, OH 
• Thomas Peters, Executive Director, South Carolina''s Coalition for Mathematics & Science, Clemson,SC
• Reo Pruiett, Senior Director, Programs, Educate Texas, Dallas, TX
• Vincent Stewart, Executive Director, California STEM Network, Children Now, Sacramento, CA

Students with special needs, especially those with autism spectrum disorder, have many natural strengths and talents that lend themselves to STEM pursuits. However, in order to successfully develop those strengths a variety of strategies are required to accommodate and support students’ learning styles and their social emotional needs. In this panel discussion and workshop, two teacher specialists from STEM³ Academy, a STEM school for students with special needs, will share strategies and ideas.

Sponsored by STEM³ Academy

Learn about an innovative partnership between industry and secondary and postsecondary education to strengthen the STEM pipeline. Hear representatives from Da Vinci Science High School, Northrop Grumman, and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo share the outcomes of this unique collaboration.

Moderator: Steve Wallis, Da Vinci Science High School, El Segundo, CA

Panelists:

• Carleen Beste, Director of Corporate Citizenship, Northrop Grumman Corp., El Segundo, CA
• Natalie Schaefer, Executive Director, Strategic Development Initiatives, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo

Sponsored by Northrop Grumman

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.

Participants will use the engineering design process in a creative way to design and build “pile” or “foil” batteries! Then groups will use their custom battery (batteries) design to create circuits and power devices—a PD workshop perfect for beginners and experienced teachers.

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

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.

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!

Join me for a discussion of how student are trained to be scientists emphasizing intuition and non-specialized knowledge rather than using the scientific method to make discoveries.

Engage students by modeling chemical and physical properties of water using hands-on/minds-on magnetic water molecules. Experiment with liquids to enhance model-based understanding of real-world phenomena. Explore common water phenomena such as density, solubility, cohesion, and adhesion. Evaluate student understanding as they create and communicate their own 2D models.

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. Leave with ways to incorporate biotechnology and gel electrophoresis into your classroom.

STEM learners relish engagement with intriguing phenomena, where they can use their senses, imagination, conversation, visualization, and trial-and-error. Collectively, these factors form a contextual constellation around learning and memory.

This workshop will focus on the oceanic circulations and weather extremes that occur due to El Niño and La Niña events, and how the global wind patterns and surface currents in the Pacific Ocean react to these changes.

Take part in hands-on activities in physical and life science and engage in argument from the evidence of an inquiry lab.

Hear about one STEM Partnership School’s journey to build and sustain community partnerships using crosscutting concepts and science and engineering practices as a foundation.

Explore how community partners can help you integrate STEM with meaningful watershed educational experiences and leverage instructional resources to engage students with Project-Based Learning experiences.

Prepare for a family STEM night with our theme ideas, timelines, and resources. Walk away with helpful strategies for a successful event in your community.

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

Emphasis will be placed on pedagogical methods in computer science that support intellectual rigor while being relevant to diverse populations of students.

BMX Olympic medalist Donny Robinson discusses “how far can two wheels take you,” encouraging teachers and students alike to find their own “two wheels.”

Have you been asking whether you should trust loud claims of advertising? Or simply want to know what a penny is made of?

Encounter a new twist on the circuit maze challenge, while engaging in a classroom-ready engineering and design task that will bolster collaboration and feedback.

Discover simple, easy, and inexpensive methods for starting a school garden by using upcycled and free materials.

Discover how first graders created a cross-curricular STEAM product within a unit focusing on science and ELA standards.

Students have very little unstructured time but allowing them to tinker in STEM gives them the opportunity to grow their imagination and expand their creativity.

Discover new instructional resources, collaboratively developed by NSTA and WIDA, that support ELLs’ full engagement in three-dimensional science, their science reasoning, and science discourse.

Engage in a series of activities to show how the restoration of an apex predator to the food chain can heal an ailing ecosystem.

A unit will be presented that engages students and teachers in responsive classroom practices by allowing students to critique fidgets, define criteria for appropriate fidgets, and design their own fidget based on their learning. Students will justify their design as well as their reasoning to allow or ban fidgets in the classroom.

Explore what engineering success looks like and how to use the NGSS science and engineering practices as the framework for formative and summative assessment.

Bring systems and system models alive through the creative dance process. Using the example of a life cycle, participants will apply dance strategies that will help students internalize scientific content kinesthetically.

Learn Orton-Gillingham strategies and activities for science vocabulary, concepts, and organizational skills that can be used immediately in all grade levels and inclusion classes.

A complete video and materials record of an inquiry-based course is an anytime resource for study of students, instructors, teaching, and learning. Want to show preservice teachers how backward design works? Have colleagues who don’t know what inquiry looks like? Come visit.

Students apply their understanding of the concepts of energy transfer and transformation to compare the efficiencies of two types of light bulbs. They do so by measuring the amount of thermal energy produced by the two bulbs, applying the law of conservation of energy, and calculating how much of the electrical energy supplied was converted into light energy.

Collecting and analyzing experimental data has never been easier using Vernier technology in your lab. Help prepare students to meet the NGSS and state standards through data-collection experiments that support three-dimensional learning. Bring your own device with our Graphical Analysis 4 app installed or use ours during the workshop.

Science is about explaining the phenomena that occur in the world around us. Join in to experience how phenomena is used during instruction and learn how to develop your own anchor and investigative phenomena to drive your lessons.

Designed for middle school and high school, join us if you’re new to coding and want to get up to speed. We will bring coding and hands-on together as you learn how to program a robotic vehicle (called a Rover) to get as close to an object as possible without touching it! No coding experience is necessary.

Feel like a student in this hands-on activity integrating STEM disciplines, while using various 3D printing platforms. Perfect for the novice to intermediate educator.

Complete an integrated STEM activity focused on properties of light, view student participation video, and consider gender equity in small group STEM activities.

Construct a Pascal’s Pyramid and discover interesting mathematical patterns hidden within. If you love Pascal’s Triangle, come meet her equally interesting yet often overlooked cousin!

Explore weather and climate data through an online graphing tool that simplifies data visualization so students can focus on analysis and interpretation.

Interested in creating cross-curricular Project-Based Learning in your STEM course or curriculum? Bring a lesson or unit to transform into a PBL masterpiece!

When students collect their own data, they are WAY more likely to take an interest in the data. Come to this 100% hands-on session and experience the engagement, the interactivity, and the fun that comes with data collection!

Experience five hands-on evidence-driven climate change lessons that turn misconceptions into educational opportunity.

All life depends on water. Wade into three-dimensional learning by creating an efficient water usage model. Inspired by real-world events, students are motivated to apply problem-solving skills and learn some basic programming to come up with innovative solutions to the drought situation in southern Africa.

Build San Francisco is a consortium of educators and design professionals who have come together to create a STEM education environment for high school students.

Hear about an innovative, exciting new approach to exciting inner-city high school students around STEM, and preparing them to join the advanced manufacturing workforce of the future!

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

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 share case studies involving STEM project partnerships between 21st-century community learning centers and National Park Service field sites. Receive an introduction to NEEF’s Greening STEM Place-Based Learning toolkit.

Find out about NASA’s essay contest for K–12 students to name the Mars 2020 rover, as well as preview educational resources and share best practices.

River investigation and the creation of model flood protection projects offer unique experiential opportunities to engage young students in STEM learning experiences that are relevant to the communities that live in and promote environmental stewardship. Learn how one school created multifaceted STEM partnerships to teach their students about their city, wetlands, culture, and river.

Experience hands-on, integrated STEM focusing on grade 4 NGSS. We will showcase lessons capturing imagination and creativity through real-world problem-solving and data analysis.

Play immersive evolution games as you learn strategies for building effective, community-specific science outreach in collaboration with multiple regional partners.

Engage in a discussion about an innovative partnership between Morgan State University, a Historically Black College and University, and a local school district focused on preparing the next generation of STEM teacher leaders.

How much of our curriculum is spent focusing on Newton’s laws or the Bohr model? While these are important for building our students’ toolbelts in the science of old, come learn activities on how NASA is moving science forward.

Complete a distracted driving “simulation” and discover free IIHS-related STEM activities and real-world applications exploring vehicle crashworthiness and crash avoidance technologies.

Model My Watershed is a free, web-based application that invites students to explore the condition of their local watershed with a scientifically valid watershed model.

Sphero and Dash robots are flexible tools that can engage students of all ages. Participants will learn how educational robotics can be used to teach engineering design challenges with students.

Come participate in “science of wonder” science and learn to help your young learners to joyfully explore science in their everyday world.

Water, like wine, has significant variations. Explore drinking water; take home numerous inexpensive experiments and hands-on activities for students to use investigating their drinking water.

Engage and explore how animals solve problems as characters in folktales and apply the scientific practices to learn how animals are natural engineers.

Join us to investigate a middle school engineering activity where students design an electromagnet to meet the design criteria and constraints of an engineering challenge.

Block-based coding is a perfect transition for students to learn how coding can be seen on a computer screen to how it can be used to move physical objects.

The Tennessee STEM Innovation Network has developed a strong, statewide STEM ecosystem for K–12 rural educators. Teachers engage in a yearlong cohort that focuses on STEM learning through authentic exploration while leveraging local partnerships to provide equal access to STEM opportunities and experiences.

Why a STEM book? STEM books engage students deeply by demonstrating a way of thinking. What are some of these great books and how do they ignite even the most reluctant learner.

Starting STEM from scratch can be an overwhelming task. Instead, learn how to take existing science curricula and STEMify it! Come learn about how common elementary science lessons can be modified into STEM lessons by adding context and design challenges.

Dive into the differences between equity and equality, as well as understand equity’s importance to students as you explore activities that will provide foundational skills for building equitable classrooms.

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!

Energize your students with two great lessons presented by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service—Seasons of Change and Native Fish in the Classroom. Explore these lesson plans and techniques to help you teach science, and bring nature and conservation into your classes!

ENGAGE your students in investigating enzyme structure/function using multiple modeling strategies. EXPLORE and EXPLAIN catabolism, anabolism, competitive, and noncompetitive inhibition with hands-on/minds-on instructional materials. ELABORATE on insecticide inhibition at an enzyme active site resulting in unintended consequences. EVALUATE student learning with an enzyme molecular story. Handouts.

Quality engagement and support offered through student clubs can impact the college experience of students. We will highlight the challenges and successes of the Student Science Club.

Add new learning to your mathematics class by implementing problem-based STEM lessons using just one LEGO EV3 robot.

Great Minds, the nonprofit behind Eureka Math/EngageNY, introduces PhD Science to support three-dimensional teaching and learning. Join us to use the engineering design process to design a seawall based on established criteria and constraints (SEP.6) to reduce the impact of flooding (ESS3.B) caused (CC.2) by storm surge.

Discover how ClimateChangeEducation.org and the Mobile Climate Science Labs have taught thousands of students about the science supporting climate change using hands-on experiments with infrared cameras and PocketLab Air sensors. Get the tools to do authentic climate science with your students inside the classroom, as well as outdoors in urban and rural settings.

Find out all about the world of conductive tape circuitry in this fun and interactive workshop! Turn simple circuitry lessons into fun STEAM lessons through the fun and inexpensive work of Paper Circuits. Great for all ages and free materials provided for attendees.

Join in for a STEM activity that introduces circuitry for elementary classrooms using conductive tape, button batteries, and LEDs to create an interactive wetland museum.

Experience how anchoring real-world Phenomenological Experiences can provide the foundation that grounds the STEM learning and acts as a tether from which students can connect new learning.

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

Discussion centers on how 3- to 7-year-old Head Start and low SES children do unusual, challenging STEM projects building statues, helicopters, and domes—as well as researching how to clean polluted water.

Learn about a multi-part water lab designed for second graders. Use paper clips to explore surface tension and water cohesion. Will they sink or float?

Discover how to use a variety of K–4 children’s literature as a basis to teach Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Art (STEAM) by developing a planning guide. Participants will be exposed to books such as Mike Mulligan and His STEAM Shovel and Katy and the Big Snow—story content that is not typically associated with high-level STEAM-based content.

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.

Connect the human impact of trash pollution to engineering design. Get your students thinking critically and creatively as they collaborate in real-world problem solving.

Come learn about and experience NGSS chemistry curriculum that San Francisco has created from the ground up. It includes embedded Earth and space science standards.

Learn how to incorporate STEM across multiple curricula to increase collaboration among educators and foster a love of STEM education through Problem- and Project-Based Learning.

Muscular-skeletal anatomy is useless in 2D! Using the anatomic structures involved in the Trendelenburg and Thomas orthopedic tests, we will explain this common pelvic dysfunction.

Review findings from a study that examined how action research and micro-credentialing the knowledge domains of teaching documents develop science teachers’ professional practice to improve student learning.

Southern Methodist University and the Dallas Arboretum representatives share successes and lessons learned in a collaborative design project with M.Ed. candidates pursuing a STEM specialization.

Dr. Bernard A. Harris, Jr. believes all students are born with talents and purpose and that they have infinite possibilities. He inspires students and adults alike with his experiences of growing up at a time when the “right stuff” was exclusively defined by white men. Having reached his dreams of becoming a medical doctor and astronaut, Dr. Harris has spent the past 30 years increasing access to STEM education and urging students to dream beyond any limits and to leverage education to reach their highest potentials.

Students with special needs, especially those with autism spectrum disorder, have many natural strengths and talents that lend themselves to STEM pursuits. However, in order to successfully develop those strengths a variety of strategies are required to accommodate and support students’ learning styles and their social emotional needs. In this panel discussion and workshop, two teacher specialists from STEM³ Academy, a STEM school for students with special needs, will share strategies and ideas.

Sponsored by STEM³ Academy

Explore a variety of hands-on/minds-on instructional materials that introduce students to DNA as a double-stranded helical molecule, as information (a sequence of As, Ts, Gs and Cs) that encodes proteins, and as a 3.2 billion base-pair genome. Using the models, students authentically discover how DNA structure fits its functions. Assess student understanding of DNA structure by engaging them in critical evaluation of alternative models.

Engaging phenomena helps students use the SEPs to develop explanations and predictions. Join in to use free HHMI BioInteractive resources to explore the phenomenon of the “Wolves of Isle Royale.” Participants will predict population interactions, analyze data gathered over 60 years, and explore the factors affecting the dynamics of this system.

Learn about an innovative partnership between industry and secondary and postsecondary education to strengthen the STEM pipeline. Hear representatives from Da Vinci Science High School, Northrop Grumman, and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo share the outcomes of this unique collaboration.

Moderator: J. Wesley Hall, Executive Director, STEMx at Batelle, Nashville, TN

Panelists:

• David Burns, Director, STEM Innovation Networks, Ohio STEM Learning Network/Battelle, Columbus, OH 
• Thomas Peters, Executive Director, South Carolina''s Coalition for Mathematics & Science, Clemson,SC
• Reo Pruiett, Senior Director, Programs, Educate Texas, Dallas, TX
• Vincent Stewart, Executive Director, California STEM Network, Children Now, Sacramento, CA

Learn about an innovative partnership between industry and secondary and postsecondary education to strengthen the STEM pipeline. Hear representatives from Da Vinci Science High School, Northrop Grumman, and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo share the outcomes of this unique collaboration.

Moderator: Steve Wallis, Da Vinci Science High School, El Segundo, CA

Panelists:

• Carleen Beste, Director of Corporate Citizenship, Northrop Grumman Corp., El Segundo, CA
• Natalie Schaefer, Executive Director, Strategic Development Initiatives, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo

Sponsored by Northrop Grumman

Interested in learning about forensic science and want to get a taste of how to engage your students in it? Try out this hands-on workshop focusing on chromatography and invisible inks! Decipher messages, find out about misconceptions and pitfalls about these topics, and learn about real-world applications.

During this panel, attendees will get a holistic view of the latest trends in STEM Education from experts in research, industry, and academia. Panelists will share the best practices and advice for STEM teachers to prepare tomorrow’s workforce from their unique perspectives. In addition, you will hear about the instrumental role that informal educational institutions such as National Geographic and The Tech Interactive play in STEM education and how a classroom teacher can leverage these partnerships to further STEM education.

Also, learn from these leaders how classrooms and schools should promote a focus on inclusive STEM instruction that promotes equitable opportunities for all learners, especially those from underrepresented groups within the STEM workforce.

Moderator: Kavita Gupta, National Geographic Educator Fellow; NGSS@NSTA Curator, STEM Forum Steering Committee Member, and AP Chemistry Teacher, Monta Vista High School, Cupertino, CA

Panelists:

• Alison Szopinski, Senior Director, Educator Community, National Geographic Society
• Tiffany Besse, Chief Academic Officer, Ferguson School District
• Patrick Moyle, Professional Learning Specialist and Services Lead, Making Sense of SCIENCE, WestEd 
• Gretchen Walker, Vice President, Learning, The Tech Interactive
• Nora Brackbill, Volunteer at Tech Trek, Podcaster, and PhD Student, Stanford University

Using tools to collect and interpret motion-related data is fundamental to the NGSS practices and STEM education in grades 6–8. Participants will use a relatively new digital tool, PocketLab, to collect and interpret pressure as well as force and motion data while engaging in three short labs.

Though electrophoresis is generally taught in the life science classroom, all facets of STEM were required to design and build The MiniOne Electrophoresis System for the educational market. Come learn about design/engineering considerations, challenges, and outcomes that shaped our system, and how it integrates life science, chemistry, and physics.

Experience how students investigate which locations are most suitable for a population of orangutans while analyzing data and figuring out principles of global weather and climate patterns. Get a hands-on dive into Amplify Science for Grades 2–5, engaging with this new NGSS-designed curriculum from The Lawrence Hall of Science.

Students investigate how chemical energy can be transformed via a chemical process into electrical energy. After building a prototype wet cell, students brainstorm improvements and build, test, and evaluate new prototypes to meet a set of predetermined criteria within specified constraints.

Teaching our students to analyze and interpret data and to support scientific claims with evidence are important parts of NGSS. Join in to use free resources from HHMI BioInteractive, such as Data Point activities to learn how to help students meet NGSS SEP goals.

As instructors, we want to reflect on how to balance activism and adversarial attitudes among students and faculty in the science classroom. How do we present the science and address students claims supported by examples in the media?

This session should particularly benefit STEM educators who are interested in advising, empowering, and supporting their culturally diverse students to pursue STEM careers or to continue STEM resilience, while learning how to practice cultural humility in their advocacy roles to support these students.

Representatives from Regional Opportunity Initiatives will share ways to build collaboration among school and community partners to expand economic development and community prosperity through STEM education.

Explore six mini-lessons on the concept of ecosystem services using a high-tech tool called EnviroAtlas from the U.S. EPA.

Explore classroom STEM investigations related to the International Space Station. Human exploration of space integrates STEM disciplines from science research in microgravity to engineering life support systems for space travel.

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

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.

Let’s explore the opportunities to engage young students (preK–grade 2) in the application of engineering practices and have some fun with science.

Our successful STEM lessons incorporate NGSS, teaching fractions, and the joy of cooking for the holidays into the elementary classroom. Pumpkin pies, cranberry salad, and gingerbread houses are on the menu.

Inspire sustained curiosity and engaged exploration and learning in your students. Discussion centers on exemplary, integrated STEM activities where children explore objects, materials, and technology-rich manipulatives to see the effects of their actions and to help them see the interconnectedness of the STEM disciplines. Handouts.

Physical connections are no longer the only learning option. We have been examining the digital possibilities that currently exist, and how those possibilities make space for our youngest citizens.

Add relevance to your classroom and try out NASA Aeronautics’ exciting new STEM Learning Modules, which provide lessons and activities aligned to current NASA programs.

Build a mousetrap vehicle and discover how to integrate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) by modifying variables to increase speed or distance traveled.

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.

Engage your students in contemporary controversial issues in an authentic environment and give them the opportunity to develop higher-order thinking skills that will propel them toward a career in STEM.

The universal interest in the weather, combined with the use of computational methods in meteorology, make weather forecasting promising in the integration of STEM learning.

How can we purposefully integrate math and science in the grades 3-5 classroom? Experience a sample STEM lesson exploring connecting math and science through CCSS-math and NGSS. Leave with an easy-to-use planning tool to help make math and science connections more natural in your classroom.

Learn how to implement student-driven passion projects into your classroom. I will share how I have successfully allowed students to drive their learning.

Using the fictional book Deadly, as well as paired nonfiction reading selections, investigate how STEM helped track down Typhoid Mary.

Find out how urban high school students designed off-grid power systems providing services for people in homeless encampments. This unit addresses how science and engineering can positively impact society.

Discussion will be centered on how Rockhurst High School researched and continues to develop its robotics program to meet the needs of its students. Participants will gain insight into different robotics platforms and competitions.

Discover how to implement a STEM day with students at any grade level to engage every student in a daylong STEM competition.

Take part in Sensing Science and uncover your children’s ability to reason about the states of matter using visualizations, including models, probes, and online interactive stories.

Join in to better understand the role that companies and corporations play in developing the STEM talent pipeline and how to establish partnerships among them.

Use computer science to bring core STEM concepts—like design, experimentation, creation, and integration—into math class.

If you’re new to coding, come get up to speed! This session combines coding and hands-on activities as you learn to program a robotic vehicle to perform different challenges.

Our NSF-funded project helps nonprogramming teachers integrate Arduino and Raspberry Pi into their classes. Get free resources, and BYOD to participate in some programming fun.

Engage in hands-on/minds-on learning to further your understanding of crosscutting concepts as critical components of the K–12 Framework that deepen learning for young children.

The lesson presented exemplifies an integrated approach using the content areas embedded in STEAM to teach about paleontology. In designing this lesson, we used a problem-based inquiry framework to encourage students’ questioning, critical thinking, and problem-solving abilities.

Children are scientists—asking “What are stars?,” “Are whirligigs alive?” Watch 3- to 6-year-old Head Start children’s questions evolve into conversations from which science projects emerge.

Examine the development of engineering practices for early learners through hands-on exploration and discuss how to foster engineering skills and critical-thinking for all young children.

Capitalize on assets and contributions of transdisciplinary teams and partners to improve English language learner student outcomes through a STEM learning ecosystem focused on urban ecology.

Participants will design a marine debris cleanup device, learn about the challenges that real-world applications face, and take away alternative ideas for reducing plastic in our seas.

WIDA stands for World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment. Discover through video examples and discussion how to implement discourse facilitation moves to strengthen students’ reasoning and complex language in ways fully inclusive of English language learners.

Who, what, where, when, and why? How a Title 1, Urban, K–5 school started STEM and is gaining STEAM!

Hear how we transitioned our regional STEM Materials Center from traditional inquiry-based science kits to an approach that better supports NGSS. We will share our strategy to develop storylines that engage students in phenomenon-based learning that focus on local problems by using a combination of research, teacher leadership, and community partnerships. Receive templates and access to Open Educational Resource storylines.

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

We will present a popular Science from Scientists lesson. Using a model of an oil spill, participants design and implement an environmental cleanup procedure to minimize negative effects on marine stakeholders.

This mixed methods study analyzes a summer space camp that was designed to support STEM career identity exploration in African American middle school females.

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!

Support your students as they learn to construct scientific explanations about natural selection and evolution using free HHMI BioInteractive resources. We will use different strategies to communicate natural selection in the rock pocket mouse. Activities are adaptable to all levels of middle school and high school biology.

Experience two exemplary NGSS-focused activities from SEPUP that build up to “Waves and Their Applications in Technologies for Information Transfer” (MS-PS4-2). Anchored in the context of health issues around various types and levels of wave exposure, these activities model seamless integration of the three dimensions, ELA, and math standards. We will explore the relationship between visible light frequency and energy through the use of a phosphorescent material and use light boxes to explore reflection and refraction.

This architect-led, interactive session invites administrators and educators to collaborate in defining spaces that best support STEM/ STEAM /STREAM learning outcomes. Explore best practices in the design of learning spaces that are inspiring, accommodating, and flexible. Analyze the ingredients of a successful setting for an integrative STEM program through the review of exemplary case studies.

Sponsored by American Institute of Architects Committee on Architecture for Education

Hear how the U.S. Department of Education and Digital Promise captured innovative, research-based approaches for using technology to improve STEM learning that you can apply in your classroom.

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! Appropriate for middle school and high school students.

CER is a way for students to explain observed phenomenon in a scientific way and how observations and data from an investigation are connected to science knowledge. This acclaimed and highly successful instructional strategy is changing how lab instructions are conducted and making science investigations meaningful for students. ELD and Dual Language strategies will be shared and modeled for an equitable learning environment.

Join this session to discover how engineering is seamlessly integrated into the Amplify Science curriculum across grades K–8 as student design solutions to real-word problems. 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.

Want to help your students discover science without dissecting animals? Come explore innovative AR/VR science resources and other hands-on nonanimal resources that will both amaze and engage your students. All participants will have the opportunity to demonstrate virtual dissections AND win valuable STEM resources!

Come to this hands-on workshop where educators can apply design thinking to cross-curricular lesson planning through the use of five powerful questions.

Collaboration among partners, schools, businesses, community members, and after-school programs can strengthen student readiness and academic achievement. An effective STEM campus will grow and connect STEM learning opportunities for all students. Barriers that hinder equitable access also need to be identified. Come learn how to plan, implement, and sustain a campus—the cornerstone of a STEM ecosystem.

Turn LEGO® into interactive circuitry lessons for all ages. Learn how to create simple circuits and even do basic programming in a fun and engaging environment. No prior knowledge needed! Free curriculum and materials will be provided for all who attend.

Enzymes, proteins, and genes, Oh My! You know they are all related…but how can you help your students see and understand the connections? Come learn how you might use lactase as a phenomenon, part of a suite of free HHMI BioInteractive resources, to anchor your life science course.

We will share the unique experiences of two undergraduate scholars and their nontraditional paths to careers in STEM education.

Explore how to find free and inexpensive STEM resources in your community. We will share how we incorporated guest speakers, corporations, small businesses, and student-centered pedagogy into the STEM classroom.

This introduction to STEM for elementary classrooms will allow participants to explore motion and energy while creating their own Rube Goldberg machine using found objects.

Teaching weather is an ideal way to integrate STEM, ELA, and social studies. We will share all materials (e.g., activities, assessments) from our weather unit.

Engage in a hands-on 3D design of a molecule or landform while learning about the STEM Integrative Flow Model for creating STEM units.

Discussion centers on how to create an effective STEM-focused makerspace, specifically designed to advance engineering principles, robotics, technology skills, ignite learning and engagement, and fulfill the NGSS. Emphasis will be placed on criteria for what to include, how to use it to reach diverse populations, and how to measure its effectiveness, emphasizing exploration and innovation.

Explore examples of successful collaboratives between museums and schools and learn how to get what you need from your community partners.

Come join in a lively hands-on session that demonstrates how easily you can implement STEM design challenges (towers, soft landing) with a variety of craft materials. Discover how a STEM and NGSS approach presents a powerful duo that increases interdisciplinary connections within your curriculum.

A picture is worth a thousand words, and that's why picture books are perfect for connecting STEM and literacy learning! Engage your K–2 learners with hands-on engineering challenges that use children’s literature as a launch pad.

Watch images of two renowned evolutionary biologists’ field work over 45 years. Discuss intriguing activities that bring the science to life for 3- to 9-year-olds.

How can we invite students to tinker with math as they move through classroom spaces? Emphasis will be placed on how creating positive math identities in early learning impacts later STEM engagement.

Increase student engagement in analysis and evaluation of real data. Engage students of different ability levels in mathematical modeling with measurements not previously accessible in the classroom.

Learn why teachers struggle to teach STEM in their classroom and what you can do to increase successful STEM education in your school or district.

Discover connections between the environment and human health using evidence from 500+ scientific articles in the online tool, EnviroAtlas from the U.S. EPA.

Gain a clear understanding of a system, its parts and processes through a hands-on and fun investigation suitable for your STEM students.

When asked how much bigger or smaller one quantity is than another, many people overlook the importance of thinking proportionately.

Find out about Argument-Driven Engineering and how it can help students learn to use the disciplinary core ideas, crosscutting concepts, and science and engineering practices to design solutions to meaningful problems.

We will present middle school activity-filled energy lessons—developed by eesmarts, a Connecticut energy education initiative. Access to online curriculum and e-books is provided. Giveaways. 

Empower students through culturally responsive Project-Based Learning. Join us as we delve into both an interactive and engaging session exploring science projects that allow scholars to collaborate and advocate for themselves and their communities.

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!

Make Algebra 2 more interesting by teaching students how to code simple algebraic functions in Python. No prior knowledge of Python needed. Find out how to code a few short algebra-related Python programs, such as a quadratic equation solver.

Communication and problem-solving are key components of an effective STEM classroom. However, scientifically rich student discourse is often too teacher-centered or missing from the classroom altogether. Learn about an approach to increase the impact of discourse by connecting science and mathematics practices in a STEM classroom setting.

How to go beyond the project-based challenges of building towers, roller coasters, or parachute apparatus by using STEM-based strategies to learn science content.

STEM educators will engage in and be informed of various applications, activities, and projects of global collaborative STEM education (e.g., balloon-powered vehicles, geometry scavenger hunt).

Find out 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.

Students use the design-thinking process to design and build a solar-powered car for a peer. This STEAM project encompasses many skills: design sketch, iterative idea generation, interpersonal interviewing skills, visual-spatial skills, mechanical engineering, sustainability, electrical circuitry, empathy, and giving.

Find out how this grant-funded STEAM Integration Specialist is building a culture of collaboration and science teaching capacity. Future plans, joys, and mistakes will be shared.

Meet “Sammie, the Scientific Method” and “Reggie, the Ruler” and other science skills brought to life through the power of storytelling. Use the power of storytelling to teach scientific inquiry skills while teaching reading skills. Leave with strategies for incorporating scientific inquiry skills and reading strategies.

Develop students’ understanding of how engineers help animals through collaborative engineering challenges that identify real-world problems, plan solutions, design models, and share results.

Join Battelle Education staff to learn how to plan and execute a community-wide design challenge to encourage students to employ the engineering design process and develop innovative solutions to local problems.

NICERC and the Department of Homeland Security provides teachers with 21st century cyber and STEM curricula that provides awareness to cyber-based degree and career opportunities.