WSST Conference 2025

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

This presentation will explore how the Growing Beyond Earth (GBE) citizen science project has been integrated into a middle school science classroom. GBE, a collaborative effort between NASA and Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, offers students a unique opportunity to engage in authentic scientific research by growing plants in controlled environments. By participating in this project, students are exposed to real-world science practices, including data collection, analysis, and interpretation. Through a series of hands-on activities, students learn about plant biology, environmental factors, and the challenges of growing plants in space. The project aligns with NGSS by addressing core ideas in life science, earth and space science, and engineering design.

This session will delve into the specific activities and lessons implemented to engage students in the GBE project, including:
--Plant Growth Experiments
--Data Collection and Analysis
--Scientific Inquiry
Student Learning Objectives
--Understand the basic principles of plant growth and development.
--Develop data collection and analysis skills.
--Apply scientific inquiry to investigate real-world problems.
--Appreciate the challenges of growing plants in space.
--Develop a deeper understanding of the role of science in society.

Through this project, students have been able to contribute to real NASA research while developing critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

Preparing to meet the challenges ahead for people and the planet requires a solid foundation in understanding the trends that shape our world, how we interact with ecosystems and change the physical landscape. Knowing how to determine good sources of data, how to analyze and think critically about data, make reasonable correlations and use data for designing solutions are all skills emphasized in the Wisconsin Standards for Science.

In this hands-on session, the presenter will use interactive strategies (simulations, games and small-group discussion) to present and interpret data in different formats (statistics, photos/videos, narratives) on several key Disciplinary Core Ideas for grades 9-12, especially in Life Sciences and Earth and Space Sciences. Data-rich lessons will address climate change causes and effects, land and water use, biodiversity, and global demographic trends. The presenter will discuss how to implement these activities as part of broadening students’ understanding of “Earth and Human Activities.”. Participants will receive lesson plans and background materials in an electronic format. Presented activities are relevant to Biology, Earth Science, General Science, and AP Environmental Science.

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.

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!

Imagine a land where volcanoes rumble beneath glaciers, where steaming hot springs peak through icy landscapes. This is Iceland, a destination of an extraordinary adventure for two Wisconsin teachers. Join them as they recount their unique opportunity to present to graduate students at the University of Iceland, sharing the explorations, discoveries, and valuable connections they established with educators and students from around the world. Prepare to be inspired by the geological wonder of Iceland and the power of scientific exchange!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.