In this session I will show you how I use the various DNA Kits in my classroom from 3D Molecular Designs. I will also show you how I tie them together. I use these kits with my students in Project Lead the Way Principles of Biomedical Science when we discuss DNA structure and function and genetics. I use them to demonstrate types of chromosomes, where genes are located and the why behind the letters we use in Punnett Squares. I use these models to show the differences between heterozygous and homozygous alleles to allow the students to see what happens at the DNA level so they understand why we have those differences and how they show up in proteins. I use this kit with the Flow of Genetic Information kit and protein folding when we talk about protein synthesis and the dynamic DNA kit when we talk about genetics and DNA.
Obtaining food to meet our energy and matter needs is a basic requirement of humans, in addition to helping define our cultural practices and ways of life. This presentation will share how to use elements of the three dimensions of the NGSS and Framework to engage students in making sense of phenomena and problems related to the production and consumption of food. Strategies for how to use driving question boards, 3-dimensional learning outcomes, and engagement of all learners will be shared. Students will ask questions for how perfect apples are mass produced, how nutrients and environmental factors affect the quality of fruit, and how to attain the right balance of sweet-tart flavor. This storyline weaves together concepts such as meiosis and mitosis, pedigrees and probability, plant structure and function, nutrient cycles, and the role of photosynthesis in producing food in order to explain why it took 30 years to produce the Honeycrisp apple.
Have you ever posed a scientific question to your students only to hear crickets? Have you ever planned an intriguing investigation only to have it flop because of lack of student engagement? In this session, science teachers will explore practical strategies to cultivate a classroom culture that inspires curiosity, fosters collaboration, and maximizes student engagement. Participants will learn how to create an environment where students feel valued, safe to take risks, and excited to explore the wonders of science. Through guided discussions, case studies, and hands-on activities, teachers will discover techniques to promote active learning, build a sense of community, and develop classroom routines that support inquiry-based and student-centered teaching. By the end of the session, educators will leave with a toolkit of strategies to strengthen student connections, enhance participation, and create a dynamic classroom atmosphere where students are motivated and eager to learn.
In the OpenSciEd Instructional Model students are presented with puzzling phenomena that elicit a variety of questions that motivate the learning in the unit. These anchoring phenomena draw students into the storyline by presenting the natural challenge of explaining something or solving a problem. Other phenomena may be introduced at key points in a storyline to maintain interest or push students to delve more deeply. To help teachers and students advance through a unit storyline, the instructional model takes advantage of five routines—activities that play specific roles in advancing the storyline with supports to help students achieve the objectives of those activities. The routines typically follow a pattern as students kick off a unit of study, surface and investigate different questions they have, put the pieces together from those investigations, and then problematize the next set of questions to investigate. In this session participants will engage as “students” with an OSE lesson to experience these routines from both the teacher and student lens. Additional supports and resources will be shared so that teachers can go back to the classroom ready to teach a 3-dimensional lesson.
How do you assess young elementary students in science? How do you measure progress in the NGSS Science and Engineering Practices? I have developed rubrics that allow me to chart the growth of my grades 1-4 students, using the SEP as my standards. I will share students' work samples from a variety of units and show how I use the rubrics to record and share their progress. My rubrics can be used with students to set goals, clarify expectations, and teach explicitly. They can also be used to share progress with parents, and they can support a standards based report card system. This session will allow participants to review the rubrics and discuss the pros and cons of using them in their own teaching practices.
Milk is an important food product that provides all of the nutrients that young mammals need to survive early in life. Learning from populations that can digest dairy can help provide solutions to humans who choose to consume it into adulthood, despite the inability to do so naturally. Because of this demand, milk and dairy products altogether continue to be an important aspect of agriculture.
Participants will engage in a new storyline that tasks students with constructing and revising explanations based on evidence for why dairy is such an important agricultural product and source of food energy. The Milk storyline is the 7th in a series being developed by a group of 25+ educators from the midwest for science and agriculture teachers that engage students in developing explanations for agricultural phenomena and solving real-world problems. Students utilize the three dimensions of NGSS as they learn about food systems or the production, processing, distribution, and consumption of food products and interactions with the natural environment. Intentional emphasis is placed on developing skills related to the Scientific & Engineering Practices and building Crosscutting Concepts.
In this professional learning session, participants will explore the power of science notebooks as tools to deepen student sensemaking and engagement in the science classroom. Science notebooks offer students opportunities to document their observations, make connections, and reflect on their learning in ways that support critical thinking and collaboration. Through interactive activities and real-world examples, you’ll leave with ideas and resources to make science notebooking a meaningful part of your students’ learning journey. This session is ideal for educators seeking to empower their students as independent thinkers and problem solvers in the science classroom.
Activate Learning has partnered with OpenSciEd to create a digital learning platform where students can benefit from an interactive, engaging online experience when using the OpenSciEd curriculum. Students can record their observations and reasoning and receive feedback from teachers. Students benefit from modeling supports like drawing tools and stamps, as well as writing supports with sentence starters and reading supports through recorded audio, highlighting, and annotations. The OSE lessons are designed and aligned to the Framework and the NGSS. They are based on research regarding how students learn, what motivates learning, and the implications for teaching. Participants will experience first-hand our intuitive digital platform with features that enhance the OSE curriculum and help make science teaching and learning more accessible.
This presentation highlights the journey of the Wauwatosa School District Biology team as they transformed from a fragmented collection of experts to a strong, mission and vision-aligned force. The Wauwatosa Biology team has become a lighthouse within the district and across the state as they are deeply committed to continuous improvement and providing a rigorous, 3-dimensional, storyline experience for all students, through the use of OpenSciEd curricular resources.
In this session, we will discuss the importance of a strong vision, sound process for selecting curriculum, ongoing instructional coaching, teamwork, and strategies for building system-wide capacity in building a movement and driving change. We will share ideas and tools, including grading practices, for districts or departments interested in transforming the student experience in science to be more coherent, impactful, rigorous, and equitable.
Transform your classroom into a hub of innovation and leadership with a STEAM mentorship program! In this dynamic workshop, discover how middle school students can develop hands-on STEAM challenges for younger peers, fostering confidence, communication, and cross-curricular learning while implementing the engineering design process. Using real-world examples from St. Mary School in Richland Center, where students created agricultural-based projects like the Cranberry Bog, you’ll explore how to guide your students in crafting and presenting their own challenges to elementary students.
Learn essential tips and tricks for building students’ presentation skills, encouraging them to take ownership of their work, and differentiating activities to meet diverse learning needs. Discover how to introduce college and career readiness skills through mentoring opportunities that emphasize critical thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration.
You’ll also dive into strategies for gaining stakeholder buy-in, building community partnerships, and organizing lesson plans across multiple grade levels using Google Drive. This interactive session will provide you with practical tools, templates, and strategies to inspire your students to lead, mentor, and create—while promoting a love for STEM and agriculture. Walk away with everything you need to launch a successful cross-curricular STEAM mentorship program in your school!
Coordinator, Wisconsin Agriculture in the Classroom - Wisconsin Farm Bureau Foundation
I am passionate about food, farming, and people. For the past 22 years I have worked in both formal and informal roles related to agriculture literacy and education. I spent five years as an Agriculture Educator and Biology teacher in both rural and urban schools and for the past... Read More →
Join us for an engaging professional development session designed for teachers to come together, share, and brainstorm solutions around the OpenSciEd instructional materials. This workshop provides a collaborative space where educators can discuss their experiences—the good, the bad, and the challenging. Bring your successes and amazing resources to share with fellow teachers, and don't hesitate to bring your concerns and problems. Together, we will explore practical solutions, offer support, and enhance our collective understanding of how to best implement OpenSciEd in the classroom. Let’s turn challenges into opportunities and elevate our teaching practice as a team!
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.
This roundtable invites educators to share strategies, curriculum resources, and innovative teaching ideas for anatomy and physiology. Discuss challenges, exchange effective practices, and help to create a shared drive with valuable teaching materials.
This presentation will explore the development and implementation of Driving Question Boards (DQB) to foster student-led scientific inquiry. Attendees will gain insight into how DQBs serve as a powerful tool to inspire curiosity and drive learning through real-world phenomena that connect to students’ cultural resources. The session will feature classroom examples of student-created DBQs and practical strategies and procedures for guiding students in the question development process.
Participants will engage actively by stepping into the shoes of students and experiencing the DQB process firsthand as I model the teacher’s facilitation techniques and preparation. Through this interactive approach, attendees will observe how DQBs align with the Next Generation Science Standards by emphasizing student-centered inquiry, phenomenon-based learning, and three-dimensional teaching practices.
By the end of the session, participants will leave with practical knowledge, sample student work, and ready-to-use resources for implementing DQBs in their own classrooms. This session is designed to equip educators with the tools and confidence to harness the power of student questions in driving deeper scientific understanding.
Chemistry, Biology, Physics, AP Chemistry, and CAPP Dual Credit Chemistry 105/106, Cuba City High School
Chemistry, Dual Credit Chemistry UWO, Physics, and Biology TeacherI am passionate about creating space for student sense-making through strategic planning and student wondering.
Thursday April 3, 2025 11:00am - 11:50am CDT
Hutchinson
Facilitators will bring their 15+ years of background in science to help lead discussion in lab and investigation safety. In this session attendees will share ideas for science investigation facilitation. This will include informal exploration activities as well as formal and multiple day investigations. Ideas will be shared as to how to make classroom safety student centered. Attendees will also test their knowledge on best practices and apply new understanding of best practices to their science classroom by exploring science classroom safety plans.
By combining the best of NGSS and Ambitious Science Teaching, we will show you how our department revolutionized our assessments to grading to the skills. We will share sample activities, grading rubrics, gradebook set-up, and stories along the way.
Join this session to discover how incorporating simulations into your 3D learning experiences can revolutionize Grades 3-12 science lessons. Join this session to discover how incorporating simulations into your 3D learning experiences can revolutionize science lessons for Grades 3-12. We'll create an environment where students become inquisitive explorers, tackling challenging concepts and phenomena through engaging discourse, modeling, and designing solutions to real-world science problems.
This interactive session will demonstrate how simulations can enhance conceptual understanding, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills. We will reflect on how the experiences connect to the 3-dimensions of NGSS. Don't forget to bring your device to make the most of this hands-on experience!
This session focuses on empowering educators to teach climate change in a locally relevant, meaningful way by leveraging the Wisconsin Climate Hub as a resource and connecting climate educators across the nation. Participants will explore how collaboration among state leads fosters state-specific climate education while offering opportunities for nationwide connections. The session will begin with a discussion of the challenges and opportunities in teaching about climate change, followed by a deep dive into the Wisconsin Climate Hub—a platform designed to support educators with credible, engaging resources, lesson plans, and professional development opportunities. Attendees will be guided through a walkthrough of the Hub, including its navigation tools, state-specific resources, and pedagogical support articles. The session will also provide an opportunity for educators to create accounts, explore resources, and share their discoveries with peers. Key topics will include Earth Day, math integration, plastic pollution, and climate education for younger students. Finally, attendees will be introduced to the free SubjectToClimate courses available to educators, empowering them with additional tools to enhance their climate education curriculum. The session aims to foster collaboration, build knowledge, and inspire action in the classroom.
Learning Objectives: 1. Reflect on the challenges and opportunities of teaching climate change. 2. Navigate and utilize the Wisconsin Climate Hub for state-specific resources and professional development. 3. Engage in hands-on exploration of resources, with an emphasis on pedagogical strategies and local context. 4. Discover additional tools and courses to enhance climate education in the classroom.
Time tends to be the limiting factor on how well a teacher can truly dive into using the NGSS standards. A flipped classroom can give time back to the class period and allow for more student collaboration in their learning. In my presentation, I will go over the key elements of managing a flipped classroom. These elements include: the pre-class learning and the technological logistics involved, how to hold students accountable for the pre-class learning, the way a teacher's role is shifted from direct instruction to facilitator, and how to fully utilize the freed up class time for group work, case studies, review activities, and hands-on learning. I will make sure to address the difficulties that also come with a flipped classroom. To keep this session interactive I will have audience members model numerous examples of the interactive review activities that I have used over the years.
Attendees will look closer at the CASEL SEL competencies and the Learning for Justice Standards, both of which aim to bring equity and SEL into the classroom. This presentation is step one of getting familiar with the resources, as well as having time to implement one of the strategies in their current curriculum.
Join us for a roundtable discussion centered around Physics, Physical Science, or teaching in general. Have ideas to share? Great! Have questions you need help with? Bring them! Looking to connect with Physics teachers and grow your network? Fantastic!
Teacher, Mentoring Coordinator, Shiocton High School
I'm interested in Physics and Chemistry instruction, as well as interesting ways to increase student talk and alternative assessment. I'm also a foodie and comic book nerd.
Thursday April 3, 2025 2:00pm - 2:50pm CDT
Lake Poygan
Attendees will learn the core principles of Universal Design. From there, attendees will have an opportunity to 3D think and implement how to connect NGSS standards to strong UD principals in a practical, realistic, sustainable way. With extra time, attendees will take an upcoming lesson they are planning and apply these principles to that time to ask questions while integrating.
After reading Ambitious Science Teaching in 2022, I began to approach my classes much differently. Ambitious Science Teaching is a methodology which encourages student engagement, discussion, problem solving, and modeling. As with any new pedagogy, the desire to implement change can be daunting. Do I need to start from scratch? Can I implement new methods, without having to find new curriculum and materials?
I say you can! Come and hear about my journey to implement Ambitious Science Teaching methodologies, increasing student engagement without completely reinventing the wheel. Student work samples will be shown, so you can get an idea of how implementation of these ideas has increased student achievement as well.
Teacher, Mentoring Coordinator, Shiocton High School
I'm interested in Physics and Chemistry instruction, as well as interesting ways to increase student talk and alternative assessment. I'm also a foodie and comic book nerd.
Thursday April 3, 2025 3:00pm - 3:50pm CDT
Thistle
Both of these activities were developed by a high school teacher in the Teach Quantum fellowship at UW-Madison. Using a bird navigation storyline in chemistry, learn how to incorporate electrons, configurations, and spectrum to understand the Zeeman effect and its role in migratory behaviors of birds and even grazing patterns in cattle. You will also learn how to use quantum physics in an electron escape room using flame tests to explore superposition. I will provide the full lesson plans and list of materials to run activitites. Both activities showcase making chemistry equitable for all learners with basic strategies and promote group discourse and concesus modeling throughout the units. Its a great way to expose students to quantum chemistry in a unit that is difficult to come up with examples for.
In today’s diverse classrooms, science teachers must support students learning English as an additional language while fostering their scientific curiosity. This interactive presentation, designed for middle and high school science teachers and support staff, offers a practical approach to meeting this need. Through empathy-building activities, attendees will gain a deeper understanding of the challenges multilingual students face, and they’ll leave with actionable tools, resources, and strategies to create a more inclusive learning environment.
Instead of an abstract discussion on ideal solutions, this session is grounded in reality—focused on changes you can implement in your classroom next week. Participants will explore targeted methods for making science and engineering practices accessible, build a network of like-minded educators, and engage in a sample lesson designed to show how phenomena-based teaching can naturally support multilingual learners. Join this session at the 2025 Wisconsin Society of Science Teachers convention to enrich your teaching toolkit and inspire your multilingual students to thrive in science!
You will build a soil moisture sensing system using the Arduino UNO. First you will design and code the project in Tinkercad using the Arduino simulator. Then you will build and code the project using an Arduino UNO and a soil moisture sensor. You will wire your projects and code in C++. You will learn the basics of the electronics behind Arduino connected sensors and the limitless possibilities for your science labs, fairs and national competitions. The workshop will demonstrate 3D learning and how to spark innovation and creativity using the Arduino platform.
Gearbox Labs provides project and problem-based curriculum, kits, and learning experiences that integrate engineering, design, computational thinking, and digital prototyping using C/C++ and physical computing in applied STEM/STEAM contexts for K-12 students.
Kevin will share NGSS-aligned resources for teaching climate change, vaccines, and evolution. We'll discuss strategies to teach them to students in ways that will be approachable for all. We'll also discuss how to support general media literacy for students - weeding out the fuzzy from the evidence-based. Finally, we'll discuss the psychological barriers that make people want to believe certain things and keep them believing it despite the evidence. It's important to note that private school teachers also teach these topics!
Science Education Consultant, Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction
Dr. Anderson currently works as the Science Education Consultant at the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI). He enjoys helping educators improve science programs and instruction to support all students in making sense of the world and solving problems. Previously, he... Read More →
We will share the research trajectory of a program developed to support multilingual learners to demonstrate their evolving learning in science and spend time looking at examples of the assessments we developed. Participants will discuss the design principles involved in accessible assessments and how to leverage them to develop more robust academic language over time. Participants will leave with 3D assessments and grading rubrics ready for their middle school classrooms, as well as research-based strategies for adapting their existing assessments for struggling readers and English Learners.
Makerspaces can be found in almost every school, and you can have your own Makerspace in your classroom! Join us to see how easy it is to connect Makerspace activities to your science curriculum by utilizing the materials in your very own classroom makerspace. We will provide lesson ideas that use your trash/treasures to integrate NGSS, while also supporting the Wisconsin Standards for Math, and the Wisconsin Standards for English Language Arts. We will be using the Design Thinking Process to develop creativity through a hands-on approach involving tinkering.
After 20+ years in packaging design and production. I opened a youth-focused makerspace to help develop design thinking and a maker's mindset in our communities. See what the Maker Learning framework looks like and how it brings together makerspace initiatives with well-known learning... Read More →
We will share examples of and have time to work on storyline-based pedagogy. We'll pull form Illinois Storylines, OpenSciEd, and anything else new coming out (hoping on BSCS). It will be interactive, not just listening to us go blah, blah, blah. While it will be the culminating session of the Storylines Book Study this year, people who were not a part of that can still attend and will find it just as valuable. We'll also be drawing from the book, Ambitious Science Teaching.
Science Education Consultant, Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction
Dr. Anderson currently works as the Science Education Consultant at the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI). He enjoys helping educators improve science programs and instruction to support all students in making sense of the world and solving problems. Previously, he... Read More →
Many science educators are using existing High Quality Instructional Materials developed outside of Wisconsin and want to adapt them to be more relevant for our students. Finding the time and resources to make adaptations that do not change the trajectory of the existing storyline can be challenging. During this presentation we will consider the rationale for changing storylines, examine cautions of equating “local” with “relevant” phenomena, and discuss options for the most realistic places to spend our efforts to adapt existing materials to make them more relevant for our students. Suggestions are research-based with recommendations from professional developers.
The US Department of Education has recognized the Modeling Instruction program as an exemplary K-12 science program. This pedagogical approach puts students into the role of a scientist planning experiments, gathering and analyzing data, presenting the data and results of an experiment to peers. The participants of this workshop will learn about Modeling Instruction and have an opportunity to experience a number of different aspects of this pedagogical approach. This includes a physics modeling style experiment, a white boarding session and post lab discussion. Participant learning objectives include: gaining a deeper understanding of modeling instruction, participating in a modeling style experiment, learning how modeling instructions aligns with the NGSS Science and Engineering Practices, and learning how modeling instruction can be used with other science content areas.
Quality literacy and science instruction make a powerful pair. Students have much to gain from classroom instruction that intentionally integrates science and literacy in a way that builds towards rigorous outcomes in both content areas. In this session we will share resources and ideas from a new science leadership tool, hosted by DPI, for implementing quality literacy and science instruction together. Discuss the roles of multiple stakeholders, learn from evidence-based accounts of best practices, and consider the common barriers and pitfalls of integrated instruction.
Science Education Consultant, Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction
Dr. Anderson currently works as the Science Education Consultant at the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI). He enjoys helping educators improve science programs and instruction to support all students in making sense of the world and solving problems. Previously, he... Read More →
Join us this July at the 1200-acre property at Lowenwood in Land O' Lakes, WI. Fuel your drive to deliver high-quality science learning experiences. Dig deeper into what three-dimensional, phenomenon-based instruction looks and feels like. Experience first-hand the type of sense-making intended with the Next Generation Science Standards. Most importantly, recharge your passion by reflecting on the impact that you are having and connect with like-minded science educators from around the state.
Dr. Wilcox is an Assistant Professor in Biology and Science Education at the University of Northern Iowa. He was a high school general science and biology teacher prior to becoming a professor. Jesse has won numerous teaching awards, has presented hundreds of times at science and STEM education conferences, and has published dozens of articles in science and STEM education journals. Jesse is passionate about working with science teachers and helping them strive toward improving their practices. He is the author of grades 6 - 8 Texas Experience Science. Come see practical ways to help students make sense of phenomena and how to authentically integrate phenomena into your curriculum! Using phenomena to explore scientific ideas has been an increasing trend in science education (German, 2016; NGSS Lead States, 2013). While many teachers are finding phenomena to engage students, helping students connect phenomena to science can be more challenging. This keynote will explore numerous ways teachers can transition from a phenomenon to 3D learning
Cross-Cutting Concepts are like the roots of a tree—essential for growth but often hidden from view. Explore how CCCs enhance sensemaking in science classrooms by aligning with the brain’s natural methods for organizing and retaining information. This interactive workshop offers hands-on activities, collaborative discussions, and practical classroom applications. Participants will learn how CCCs connect big ideas across disciplines, fostering critical thinking and deeper understanding. The session will highlight how CCCs leverage the brain’s tendency to form interconnected knowledge networks, making learning more accessible and transferable. Attendees will gain strategies to help students organize and retrieve complex concepts effectively, strengthening their ability to understand and explain scientific phenomena. This workshop is ideal for educators looking to enhance their teaching practices and empower students to build connections and think critically in science.
Join us for a hands-on workshop and experience firsthand Engineering Tomorrow's innovative labs.
During this session, you'll: --Dive into a real-world engineering challenge through participation in a hands-on engineering activity led by experienced mentors. --Connect with industry professionals --Learn effective teaching strategies to integrate engineering design into your classroom curriculum.
This workshop will introduce educators to the Engineering Tomorrow program, a free resource designed to inspire the next generation of engineers. Through this experience, educators will gain practical knowledge and skills in STEM education and be introduced to the NGSS aligned labs of ET.
ET STEM labs are developed by engineers and modeled on the cutting-edge work of experts in the field. During each lab, ET brings professional engineers and students from the nation’s top colleges and universities to mentor middle and high school students as they solve real-world problems at no cost to students, schools, or teachers. Over 8,900 middle and high school students in Wisconsin and over 15,000 students in the Midwest have participated in ET labs!
During the workshop, participants will learn about ET, interact with Zoom lab hosts, participate in a lab, and get advice from a veteran teacher who uses these labs in the classroom.
#ScientistMakerI am an award-winning educator with over 18 years of teaching experience and 30 years of curriculum design expertise. I am passionate about integrating real-world problems into the curriculum, fostering authentic learning experiences, and connecting students with professionals... Read More →
As a former educator, with over thirty years of classroom experience, I am excited to be bringing Engineering Tomorrow STEM labs to Wisconsin 6-12 classrooms.
As a Wisconsin certified STEM educator, with over 25 years of combined public education and private work experience, I am excited to bring the Engineering Tomorrow STEM labs to Wisconsin 6-12 classrooms. Engineering Tomorrow introduces students to the field of engineering through... Read More →
Presentation will consist of going through a mini lesson run as a storyline where the audience are the students. Present or will then walk through how each step would be taught, how this connects to NGSS, where to find storylines, how to edit storylines to try for yout classroom. We will also discuss data on storylines, pluses and minuses and address any questions around storylining. Learning objective would be audience feeling like they are engaged and feel confident in learning how to storyline and feel confident with resources given trying it out in thier own classrooms.
The main focus of the presentation is encouraging students to lead discourse in the elementary classroom, using the skills and ideas from the book Ambitious Science Teaching. The key elements we will focus on are planning for engagement, student discourse, and eliciting ideas from the Ambitious Science Teaching framework. Teachers learn how to lead conversations, the next step to aspire to is to teach students to lead the discussion. By doing so, a teacher can encourage the student’s intellectual engagement while also attending to equity issues teachers face. We plan to share and discuss successful examples in the elementary classroom. Younger students require more scaffolding, reinforcement, and encouragement to be successful in the classroom. We will share how to plan for student conversation using an anchor chart, talk scaffolds, and talking circles. In this presentation, we will also allow time for educators to practice the shared strategies with each other.
Are you using the Illinois Learning (IL) Science Storylines? Would you like to share your experiences and connect with others who are also implementing them in their classrooms? Then join this session to network with fellow educators, exchange ideas, and discuss best practices for using the IL Storylines to enhance science teaching and learning. Whether you're a seasoned user or just starting out, this session offers a supportive space to collaborate and learn from one another.
I have been using legos to help teach chemical bonding, balancing chemical equations, stoichiometry, dimensional analysis and limiting reagents to my chemistry students. We will discussion I use this in my classroom and how I got my supplies using a front and center grant. We will go through my assignments that I do with my students and see what other ideas people have to use legos to teach.
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
There is a folder on my desktop with way too many activities saved in it. I know that I will never implement them all, but occasionally I will discover a new “tool” for my “teacher toolkit.” What I really want is to hear what “tools” other folks like to use. For this reason (and many others), I am happy to have found a community of practice of other science teachers with whom I can chat about stuff I want to try in my classroom. I have learned a lot from our times together and hope teachers at any stage of their career are able to find a similar support network. In this workshop, we will act as a small community of practice for the day. First, we will get into a classroom mindset by making sense of an “everyday phenomenon”. Afterwards, we will open space for folks to share experiences and resources that they find productive for meeting similar goals or could help improve the learning experience. Come to have some fun doing a kitchen-safe lab activity and chat with others about productive experiences teaching and learning science.
I will discuss how I use the 3D Molecular designs water kit to help my students understand water and solutions. We will discuss the different hands on activities I use with the water kids and my students to show the properties of water and different types of solutions. We will also discuss how you can show how water dissolves substances.
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
Performing environmental surveys on your school building and campus is a way to make science content relevant to students and to discover and address environmental problems at your school. This presentation reviews a case study where students learned about air pollution through school air quality surveys. Four different surveys will be covered: an indoor carbon dioxide survey, an indoor particulate survey, an outdoor PM 2.5 survey, and an outdoor lichen survey. You will come away with knowing what supplies you need for each survey, how to evaluate the data, recommendations for scaffolding skills and content, and possible summative options, including a presentation to administration on environmental problems students discovered.
Standards: HS-ESS3-1. Construct an explanation based on evidence for how the availability of natural resources, occurrence of natural hazards, and changes in climate have influenced human activity.
Science & Engineering Practices: Planning and Carrying Out Investigations, Analyzing and Interpreting Data, Constructing Explanations and Designing Solution
Attendees will hear about our work to best unpack rich teacher resources to develop a cohesive PLC perspective of what a uniform experience might look like. We will discuss strategies for how to UBD a transfer task based assessment system which focuses on Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs) and Crosscutting Concepts (CCCs) rather than Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCIs). Teachers in a PLC need to develop a shared vision of what student success looks like on SEPs/CCCs in order to efficiently share success criteria with students and effectively plan instruction to provide students to deeply engage in productive work to build the capacity for that success. At the end of the session, attendees will leave with a template that could be used as is or edited to organize PLC discussions for backwards planning a unit. Attendees will leave with strategies for clarifying SEP/CCC success and facilitator moves for developing those practices in the classroom.
Join the WSST Professional Development Committee for a round table discussion about professional development opportunities you want to see from the committee.
Think outside the box! As we continue to face decreasing levels of student engagement, can we design new course offerings to captivate students in a variety of ways?
Science electives offer high school students a unique opportunity to explore their passions and delve deeper into specific scientific fields. Beyond meeting graduation requirements, these courses provide invaluable benefits, such as gaining in-depth understanding of a specialized science area, developing practical skills through laboratory work, fostering critical thinking and problem-solving abilities, exploring potential career paths, and simply satisfying a natural curiosity about the world!
Attendees will hear about the development process for three unique electives including: Cultivating student interest, encouraging exploration and interest-based course selection, and providing opportunities for students to contribute to curriculum development.
Presenters will share reflections on the preliminary offerings, including successes, challenges, and the need for cultural shift in order to maximize the benefit of these courses.
Attendees will experience several related science phenomena to build incrementally more productive models that explain the science that is being observed. A focus will be placed on attendee sensemaking -- both individually and as a collective group -- to increase facilitator tool boxes in terms of supporting student sensemaking through scientific models. The NGSS Science and Engineering Practice (SEP) of Developing and Using Models can be leveraged to bring student ideas to paper to explain weird and complex ideas. As facilitators in 3-Dimensional learning spaces, sometimes it is difficult to provide students guidance in how to create productive models without squashing student agency and authority. How can a teacher guide students toward success while leaving space for student discourse around productive modeling practices? Attendees of this session will leave with practical tools they can use to organize their facilitation moves when they ask students to develop scientific models.
This session is designed for educators who are new to AI or hesitant about using it. Attendees will be introduced to a variety of AI platforms to help determine which tools might best suit their needs. Real-life examples will demonstrate how AI can be used for creating and modifying content, designing unique classroom experiences, and saving time in both professional and personal tasks.
The presentation will highlight intuitive, accessible tools directly applicable to teachers’ daily routines. Participants will have time to explore these tools and see firsthand how easy it is to integrate AI into their practice in manageable steps.
By the end of the session, attendees will feel more confident about incorporating AI into their work, knowing that these tools are meant to enhance—not replace—their teaching.
Learning Objectives:
Understand how AI can streamline and simplify everyday tasks for teachers. Discover AI tools to amplify your lessons and engage students in new ways. Gain confidence in using AI to enhance both your professional and personal life.
High School Science Teacher, School District of Waukesha
This is my 12th year as a high school science teacher (Chemistry and Physics). I am an inveterate user of Blackboard and Google apps to facilitate instruction both virtually and face-to-face. I enjoy testing the capabilities and limits of what a program can offer me because my... Read More →
Saturday April 5, 2025 10:00am - 10:50am CDT
Thistle
Learn how a digital template can provide scaffolded guidance for student learning by providing easily accessible learning resources such as embedded content sources (video clips, articles, website links, etc) and clarifying support related to expectations for student work products (embedded rubrics, student work exemplars, etc). Additional discussion and simulated mini-lesson will cover how this approach fosters more efficient and relevant feedback of student work and how the digital template can serve as a resource hub for teaching materials (i.e. lecture slides, class data collection, rubrics, answer keys, etc.). Student notebook samples and corresponding digital notebook templates will be available for reference.
In this participatory session, we will discuss several approaches to justice-centered science education, and then collaboratively brainstorm ideas and questions about how to begin centering justice in our own teaching practice. The presenters will give an overview of recent work done in this area by Danny Morales-Doyle (author of Transformative Science Teaching), Django Paris (culturally sustaining pedagogy) and Anastasia Sanchez (the Social Focus Framework). In addition, we will briefly discuss how phenomenon-based curricula and 3D Learning can act as a springboard into justice-centered teaching. We will then brainstorm social justice science issues that matter to, or affect our students and their communities, as well as questions related to teaching and learning science for social justice. The objective of this session is to explore the path that middle and high school science teacher learning communities might take to develop an understanding of what it means to center justice in their practice.
Learn what makes great phenomena and come away with free lessons.
Not all phenomena are equal. How you kick off your unit sets the tone for the entire unit itself. Learn what makes a phenomenal phenomenon that keeps your students engaged. You’ll learn how to choose and implement the best science phenomena. You’ll also receive free access to Mosa Mack Science phenomena lessons.
This interactive, hands-on workshop has three parts:
1. Why Phenomenon: We dive into the purpose and methodology of teaching with phenomena. 2. Hands-on Physical Science: You’ll experience a shocking phenomenon: security camera footage of cars that appear to be levitating! What is really going on in the footage, how can we test it, and what can we learn about the laws of force and motion from it? 3. Closing: We’ll close the workshop with a brief summary, lesson takeaways, and a final Q&A.
In this workshop, attendees will build replicas of human anatomy using clay and a specially designed skeletal model in a classroom setting. Educators will learn how to implement a unique curriculum system which helps students create a kinesthetic map of the human anatomy. They will acquire the knowledge to engage science students with immediate, hands-on learning using a proven method that is nationally recognized to increase student retention and test scores.
This workshop will emphasize directional terms, planes, cavities and landmarks on the skeletal model and then build several skeletal muscles. Emphasis will be placed on building the rotator cuff showing their origin and insertion, their movement and discuss exercises to strengthen these muscles.
