WSST Conference 2025

The IL Biology Storylines provide a free, complete curricular replacement for any introductory biology course. 3-D learning incorporates the disciplinary core ideas, the science practices and the crosscutting concepts and is the driving force of the Next Generation Science Standards. In order to better integrate the different topics typically taught in the high school biology classroom, storyline units that are coherent and phenomenon-driven have been created so that students can make sense of how science works in real world situations. This workshop serves to introduce attendees to how the IL Biology Storylines have proven to be incredible models for sensemaking opportunities, equitable instruction, and how to lead to students becoming self-directed learners and critical thinkers in an ever-changing world.

Green teams empower schools to implement energy efficiency and renewable energy initiatives, resulting in cost savings, reduced environmental impact, and enriched educational opportunities. By engaging students and staff, these teams cultivate responsibility and foster a culture of sustainability within the school community.

FOCUS ON ENERGY® developed the Green Team Toolkit to support these efforts. This comprehensive resource empowers K-12 students as sustainability leaders, offering step-by-step guidance for forming and managing green teams, practical energy-saving strategies, and tips for competitions like Renew Our Schools. The toolkit highlights low-cost, no-cost measures with quick paybacks, enabling schools to optimize building performance while providing meaningful learning experiences for students.

Wisconsin’s K-12 Energy Education Program (KEEP) complements these efforts with Green Team Mini-Grants designed to fund energy education and efficiency projects, offering schools tangible support to turn ideas into action.

In this session, Focus on Energy, KEEP, and the Chippewa Falls Area Unified School District will showcase the benefits of green teams, the impact of the toolkit, and how these mini-grants can amplify these initiatives. Attendees will be equipped with actionable strategies, real-world examples, and the inspiration to transform students into sustainability champions, benefiting facilities, education, and the broader community.

Come experience a hands-on model lesson from OpenSciEd for High School and discover how the new Carolina Certified Edition enhanced these high-quality instructional materials, making them more accessible, user-friendly, and safer for classroom use. Participate in the featured Serengeti board game from the Biology 1 unit and walk away with valuable resources that you can take back to your classroom.

Snapshot Wisconsin is a statewide community science project that utilizes a network of trail cameras to produce wildlife management data. This workshop will discuss ways to bring Wisconsin wildlife to a wide range of grade levels, from grades K-5 to higher education. Snapshot staff will walk you through the various lesson plans and activities available to educators.

Please bring a computer/tablet, if possible. We will also have some print outs, for those unable to bring a computer/tablet.

All Snapshot Wisconsin lesson plans and activities are free. Lesson plans are available for grades K-12 and outline curriculum connections in each educator handout, including NGSS (April 2013), Common Core (2010), AP Biology (2012-2013), IB Biology (2016), Environmental Science (2013), Environmental Systems & Societies, and Wisconsin’s Standards for Science.

Learning Objectives:
- Learn about Snapshot Wisconsin and how to get involved as a community scientist
- Learn about how Snapshot Wisconsin data is used to support management decisions at the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
- Learn about how to access Snapshot Wisconsin’s free lesson plans and activities and incorporate them into your classroom or educational programming
- Learn about how to access and explore the Snapshot Wisconsin Data Dashboard as well as how it can be used to teach about science and math concepts, data literacy, and science communication.

Case studies are a great tool to engage and spark students' interest in learning about the human body systems and to learn about different diseases and conditions that affect those body systems. I will present the advantages and reasons for using case studies in a biology or anatomy class. Several case studies from different body systems will be shared and one case study will be conducted in the session. Teachers will also be given directions on a project for students to create their own case study and solve another student’s case.

Learning objectives include
Attendees will learn why case studies are a good way to teach human body systems and diseases associated with those body systems.
Attendees will learn how to incorporate case studies as a way to introduce a body system or as a way to review a specific body system.
Attendees will solve a case study.
Attendees will learn how to have students create their own case study for classmates to solve.

Are you looking at making your lessons impactful? Are you struggling to find good graphs to help your students practice? You can generate real world graphs that will paint pictures for students. Using these tools, students can make their own weather predictions, discover real time weather information, and verify weather data after weather events. You will learn how to make your own weather collection tools and have students gather real time weather data to compile over time. Help prepare students for the ACT by having them analyze data from one of the most difficult graphs to read, the SKEW-t. By reading this graph, students can analyze the weather at your school and determine the cloud heights, whether it will precipitate, what kind of precipitation, and whether severe weather is on its way. Students will also be able to explore various climates around the country and around the world by analyzing these graphs and comparing them to other regions. The weather in Wisconsin is drastically different from Saudi Arabia. Come explore how students can read graphs for real.

We have a 0.5 credit Science Intern Course at Hartford Union High School which allows students the opportunity to learn alongside a science teacher. They are responsible for laboraory set up, preparation and clean-up for our department in addition to being a teaching assistant during labs or activities in our introductory level courses. We have an application and interview process along with a reflection document that is filled out during their internship. Several former students have secured lab interns jobs as freshman at their respective universities. Learn how to propose and execute this course to help develop students as leaders in science.

Although wildfires can be caused by natural events and provide many valuable ecological services, changes in the environment related to climate change are fueling the growth of large, destructive megafires. In this workshop, participants will explore how the HHMI Resources The Science of Climate Change film and the activity The Impacts of Wildfires can help students understand these changes. We will share how to use increases in megafires as a phenomenon to guide student inquiry into the causes and impacts of climate change. The workshop will emphasize integration of NGSS practices including: asking questions and defining problems, analyzing and interpreting data, constructing explanations, and designing solutions.

In this hands on workshop participants will
Discover how to use the phenomena to engage students in the science of climate change
Explore evidence to support human causes of climate change
Evaluate various lines of evidence for which factors influence wildfire dynamics using a jigsaw strategy.
Analyze and interpret scientific figures, such as graphs and maps.
Utilize the Claim-Evidence-Reasoning (CER) approach to develop scientific claims supported by evidence and reasoning for why recent wildfires are burning more forest area.
Evaluate strategies to reduce the area burned by wildfire and minimize the impacts.

Do you get bored thinking about boards? What if I told you that even a simple board has an interesting story to tell? A tree’s history of experiences is locked away in its wood, every stress and every time of plenty is documented in its rings. Looking at boards and tree cookies, learn how to decode the ecological story of trees from sapling to harvest. The humble board can provide a rich story to enhance cell biology to community ecology. Come get board with me!

When are we ever going to use this? Be prepared to answer that question in your Ag, Math, Science, or Tech class. This session seeks to recruit teachers to a partnership with Madison College to foster connections between high school class content and applications in chemistry of concrete, strength of materials, hydrology, water analysis, soils, and surveying & mapping. Participants will learn about opportunities to receive professional development, curriculum, and lab activities that support instruction in the classroom. In addition to technical content, participating faculty will learn about academic and career pathways in engineering and engineering technology.

Curriculum Integration: Educators will learn strategies to effectively incorporate the Agriculture Pen Pal and Exchange Box activities into their existing curriculum, enhancing subjects like science, social studies, and language arts through hands-on, interdisciplinary learning.
Facilitation Techniques: Teachers will develop skills to facilitate meaningful discussions and reflections among students regarding their agricultural exchanges, promoting critical thinking, empathy, and cultural awareness in the classroom.

We will explain how educators can sign up and become a Civil Air Patrol Aerospace Education Member. We will explain all the benefits of being a member. We will also explain all the free things you are entitled to as a member. After the first year you renew as a member for free annually. There are stem kits, Lessons for your classroom, free teacher orientation flights.

Lessons have NSSG objectives and areas listed. Our goal is to get teachers teaching aerospace education lessons to give students a taste for learning more about aviation. We have frees stem kits and lessons for their classrooms. We try to show them how they can maximize their efforts in getting stem kits. We also demonstrate the ease in which you can get free materials and a flight in a Civil Air Patrol plane.

We explain how you pay only once, and can then sign up annually free of charge every year after the first year. We also like to give Teachers Airplane rides. When you get a chance to fly it becomes an experience you want to share with your students.

AI is already having a significant impact on education and is only just starting to transform our work and lives. This session seeks to provide a discussion space for educators to consider some of the following thought prompts:
-How do I design work that will help my students learn in the age of AI?
-How do I leverage AI for my work?
-How do I use AI ethically and how do I teach students to use AI ethically?
-Who has access to AI and what biases are inherently embedded in it?
-What policies exist in my space about AI?
-What policies and practices do I want to establish using AI?
-How can I evaluate the use of AI in my work and in my students’ work?

Attendees will be able to leave with:
-A better understanding of the ways that AI is shaping and will shape their work.
-Reflections on their views and values about AI in the classroom
-Next steps for their practice in the ethical use of AI

Every student deserves a welcoming and comfortable learning environment. At this polarized time, different communities are in different places in their level of encouraging welcoming spaces. In our session we’ll brainstorm the types of things that are within the control of a classroom practitioner to create welcoming spaces for all different types of identities. We’ll also share brainstorming of ways of overcoming community challenges. We will honor the wisdom and experience of the diverse perspectives of the room, by modeling strategies for helping people solve each other’s problems. Finally, we’ll look at places where in a Science classroom in particular, old types of thinking/ exclusion may cause problems for learners.

Attendees will be able to leave with:
-A reflection on the identities present in their context
-A list of possible strategies to try to make their space more welcoming to those identities
-Troubleshooting solutions to other people’s challenges in creating welcoming spaces

Several high school science teachers in the Chequamegon Bay area who share a common desire to make student learning experiences locally relevant have been connected through their involvement in the Rivers2Lake program. Rivers2Lake, run by the Lake Superior National Estuarine Research Reserve, offers year long professional development and mentorship in inquiry-based, place-centered, outdoor learning to regional teachers. Among other support offered through the program, teachers gain access to a library of NGSS-aligned lessons and field trip opportunities. In this session, teachers will share stories of how they are involving local rivers, estuaries, and Lake Superior in student investigations this school year, offer space for attendees to share their own stories about how they’re creating connections to local watersheds, and offer inspiration for where those ideas could lead them. Together the teachers are collaborating on using the stories they share, the Rivers2Lake curriculum library, and Rivers2Lake partner resources to build a NGSS aligned storyline unit investigating local waterways that could be used by regional teachers and start an annual symposium for their students to connect and share their investigations with one another.

Wisconsin faces a significant downturn in the number of undergraduate, graduate, and, alternatively certified science teachers. In 2023, only 165.new science teachers were licensed from traditional and alternative teacher preparation programs in Wisconsin, down from an average of 225 between 2014 and 2021. As a middle or high school science teacher, you can play a vital role in helping reverse this trend! In this interactive problem-solving session, we’ll share data on licensure numbers over the past 10 years and share some research and tips on ways you might help your students, paraprofessionals, and others in your orbit consider one of the best jobs in the world: engaging middle and high school students with wonders of our universe! We will share nationwide research on how teachers and schools are working to recruit and prepare science teachers, as well as ways to retain and continue to help develop new science teachers. Participants will get sample activities that teachers can immediately use with their students and friends to help them consider a career in science education. We will also ask for ideas from the participants on strategies to help increase the number of science teachers in Wisconsin.

This presentation will showcase how UWO’s Biology Department is partnering with UWO’s Dual-Enrollment program, CAPP, to provide transformative educational experiences for students. The focus of this current collaboration is part of a larger endeavor to help STEM learners translate educational experiences into career endeavors by working with regional employers as well. As UWO pivots to a new learner-centered academic structure that emphasizes career clusters, CAPP’s role in providing early access to college courses while students are still in high school can play a larger role in smoothing students’ transition to career pathways available at UWO and increasingly at other institutions of higher education.

A brief overview of UWO’s CAP Program will provide context for how we envision our collaboration with Biology—and other fields—can work to advance student learning in Wisconsin. Drs. Jessica Lucas and Mallory Janquart from the fields of Biology and Laboratory Medical Technology will showcase the career-case studies they have worked on.

As we are seeking more teachers to participate in our collaboration, attendees will learn the role of CAPP adjuncts in developing/ testing new curriculum and how to participate. Attendees will also learn about how UWO is using career clusters and trying to connect students with STEM careers. NGSS are not addressed directly, but college-level science standards are key in the design of the new curriculum. An interactive quiz is part of the presentation of the career-case studies and the new curriculum activities.