Toshiba/NSTA ExploraVision Names 2013 Regional Winners
Congratulations to the 2013 regional winners recently selected in the 21st annual Toshiba/National Science Teachers Association ExploraVision Program. ExploraVision’s 24 regional winners were challenged to work in teams and design innovative technologies that could exist in 20 years. This year's regional winning projects ranged from innovations in technology that could help make life safer, more productive, and fun to creative solutions that would improve health care and advance the science and art of medical technology.
Each of the regional winners will now move on to the national phase of the competition, where they will compete to be named among the eight national winner teams, including four first-place and four second-place winners. Students on the four first-place ExploraVision national winner teams will each receive a $10,000 US Series EE Savings Bond valued at maturity. Students on second-place teams will each receive a $5,000 Savings Bond valued at maturity. (Canadian winners receive Canada Bonds purchased for the equivalent issue price in Canadian dollars.) The eight teams will also receive an expenses-paid trip with their families, mentor, and coach to Washington, DC, for a gala awards weekend in June 2013. Activities will include a visit to Capitol Hill to meet with members of Congress, a Science Showcase during which the students will display and demonstrate their winning ideas, and sightseeing around the nation's capital. Each of the regional winning teams receives a Toshiba laptop for the school and each member of the regional winning teams will receive a Toshiba HD Camcorder.
For more information or an application for 2014, visit www.exploravision.org.
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Newly Elected NSTA Board and Council Members Announced
Congratulations to our new Board and Council members, who will take office on June 1, 2013.
Palm Beach State College / Central Michigan University
Boca Raton, FL
Wayne State College
Coordination and Supervision
Forsyth County Schools
Meeker High School
Delaware AeroSpace Education Foundation
Liberty Middle School
Horizon Middle School
Fort Hays State University
Tongue River Middle School
Schome High School
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Explore, Interact, and Engage with NSTA Symposia at the National Conference on Science Education
Educators heading to San Antonio won’t want to miss these professional learning opportunities that provide a half-day immersion into cutting edge science content and exciting hands-on strategies for the classroom. Conference attendees can choose from two NSTA symposia that include direct access to science experts, resources to take home, free refreshments, and a stipend for attendance!
- NOAA Climate Data in the Classroom, April 11, 1:30–6 p.m. Hear from NOAA scientists and education specialists about how NOAA collects, manages, and analyzes climate data. Find out how you can use related websites and resources to engage students with issues such as the impacts of coastal changes on habitats and ocean chemistry impacts on coral communities. Tickets: $47 advance/$54 on site. Stipend: $47. Learn more and register.
- Flight of the Monarch Butterflies, April 12, 8:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m. Watch the latest IMAX film Flight of the Butterflies and observe live butterflies at each stage of their life cycle. Take home numerous free resources, including lesson guides and tips for raising monarchs in the classroom. Tickets: $47 advance/$54 on site. Stipend: $75. Learn more and register.
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NCSE Climate Change in the Classroom Survey
The University of California Museum of Paleontology (UCMP) and the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) have received funding to develop a web-based resource for educators and the general public that will provide vetted, non-partisan, scientific information on global change, specifically how the earth’s natural systems are changing.
As part of this project Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) is conducting an anonymous survey to better gauge how teachers at all grade levels, in both formal and informal settings, view global change, the importance of teaching it, and the resources available for doing so. Responses from the survey will be used to help develop the web-based resource.
To participate in the 15-minute survey, click here.
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Enhance Your Conference Experience Through Professional Development Institutes
Kicking off the NSTA National Conference on Wednesday, April 11, 2013, Professional Development Institutes (PDIs) are full-day, in-depth study sessions for teachers and administrators covering a wide range of critical topics and led by some of the top PD experts in the country. Check out our website for more details on the following programs.
- Bringing Outdoor Science into your Classroom—Led by author Steve Rich, you’ll learn practical suggestions for creating, maintaining, and using outdoor classrooms along with simple and inexpensive lessons. National standards and curriculum objectives will be satisfied in the areas of life, Earth, and environmental sciences.
- Building a Professional Learning Community Through Shared Leadership—Develop an understanding of the role and responsibility for contributing to the culture and environment that shifts the possibility for those intentional conversations to occur through the development of a Professional Learning Community (PLC).
- What Works in Science Classrooms: Developing Student Understanding through Classroom Inquiry, Discourse and Sense-Making—Designing Effective Science Instruction by Anne Tweed provides the basis for all recommended strategies for improving teachers' ability to plan and deliver effective lessons to diverse student populations.
- The Literacy and Inquiry Connection: Instruction that Scaffolds and Enhancess Scientific Thinking and Understanding—Through group work, mini-lessons, discussion, and video, experienced practitioners will model and share research-based strategies for using scaffolding to enhance students' understanding of and skills in inquiry-based science and writing, and effective strategies for formative assessment of notebook entries.
- STEM Programming 101: Creating Integrated STEM Programs—Using the Common Core State Standards, the Standards for Technological Literacy, and the Grand Challenges for Engineering, participants will understand the integrative nature of K–12 STEM and how Engineering by Design can be the basis for developing the practices of engineering and concepts outlined the NGSS framework.
- Conceptual Flow: Bridging the Gap between Standards, Instructional Materials and Student Learning—The "conceptual flow" process assists teachers with understanding their instructional materials for the purposes of planning and assessment. The "conceptual flow" is also a collegial process where teachers make decisions with their peers about just what is the important content they want to teacher their students, how to align with standards, how much time to spend on a particular topic, and when to assess student learning.
- Using Science Notebooks—At all levels the use of expository writing is critical to the Common Core State Standards and the upcoming Next Generation Science Standards. Learning strategies for creating dynamic science notebooks will help students make sense of science content and be effective assessment tools in your science classroom.
- Inquiring Into Inquiry: Creating an Inquiry-based Classroom—Immerse yourself in a day of scientific inquiry. Inquiring into Inquiry is intended for anyone interested in learning more about scientific inquiry, the practices of science, and how to help students learn through inquiry.
Follow-on pathway sessions will expand on ideas and knowledge covered in the initial PDI. One-Day Work Sessions do not have linked pathway sessions.
- Addressing Engineering and Technology in the Next Generation Science Standards—Using sample standards, participants will learn how to integrate the core ideas of engineering into science content while developing the science and engineering practices outlined in the Framework for Science Education.
- It’s Not Just Science: Integration across the Elementary Curriculum—Covering inquiry-based, hands-on investigations with integrated mathematics and reading content that encompass many of the practices of science outlined in the framework for the Next Generation Science Standards as well as practices in the Common Core State Standards
- Using Cognitive Science to Improve Science Learning—Gain an understanding of the current recommendations from the Institute for Education Sciences, (The US Department of Education’s National Center for Education Research) for organizing instruction to improve student learning. They will actively experience learning science by using activities from our science curriculum modifications to the Holt and FOSS science programs.
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NSTA's STEM Forum & Expo
May 15–18, St. Louis, Missouri, NSTA will open its conference doors to multidisciplinary educators who are interested in learning how to integrate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics into curricula for students today. Critical to our nation’s ability to compete in the global economy, STEM disciplines will provide the tools for students to perform at a different academic level and educators will need to learn how to implement multidisciplinary activities into their classroom instruction.
NSTA’s STEM Forum & Expo will bring together teachers, administrators, and public and private sector partners. Eight panels will kick off the forum's morning agenda, May 16–17, with representatives and speakers from all stakeholder groups, who will lead the discussions on the following critical topics:
- What is a STEM School and What Do STEM Schools Look Like?
- Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards
- STEM X: The New State STEM Networks-How are They Working to Change STEM Education
- STEM in Urban Science Education: Engaging and Keeping More Girls and Minorities into STEM
- Public/Private Partnerships and Out of School and Informal Programs That Excite Students to the World of STEM
- Putting the T and E in Your STEM Program
- A Whole School Approach to STEM-What You Need to Know
- Promising STEM Programs: Three to Watch
Sessions for K–12 educators, administrators, and partnerships, exhibitor workshops, roundtable discussions, “family” night, and a “welcome reception with expo preview” fill out the rest of the agenda. Check out the details at www.nsta.org/2013stemforum and learn more about specific sessions appropriate to your needs. Put this event on your calendar today.
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Lab Out Loud Looks at STEM in the Elementary Classroom
As the Common Core State Standards in Math and English Language Arts are being adopted and implemented in classrooms nationwide, educators have been wondering if there will be any room left for science—especially for younger students. When Lab Out Loud caught wind of a growing movement to incorporate the sciences in Minnesota elementary schools, it had to investigate. Listen this week as hosts Brian Bartel and Dale Basler talk with Doug Paulson, STEM Integration Specialist for the Minnesota Department of Education. Doug provides insight into Minnesota's statewide initiative to increase STEM content in primary classrooms.
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NGSS @ NSTA
Your search for NGSS resources and learning opportunities supporting STEM starts here.
Web Seminar to Explore Crosscutting Concept of Scale, Proportion, and Quantity—Register Now for March 19 Event
Register now for the next web seminar in a series of seven exploring the crosscutting concepts described in A Framework for K–12 Science Education. The free event for science educators will focus on scale, proportion, and quantity and will be held on March 19 from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time.
Amy Taylor and Kelly Riedinger will help teachers learn more about scale, proportion, and quantity, why it’s important to learn about it in school science, what we want students to learn, and what instruction might look like in the classroom.
The Framework, published by the National Research Council (NRC), describes the major practices, crosscutting concepts, and disciplinary core ideas that all students should be familiar with by the end of high school and is being used to guide the development of Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).
Attend all web seminars in the series or just one. To register for these free events, visit the NSTA Learning Center.
Mark your calendar for more web seminars in this series, including
- Systems and System Models (April 16)
- Energy and Matter—Flows, Cycles, and Conservation (April 30)
- Structure and Function (May 14)
- Stability and Change (May 28)
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Science Rocks in San Antonio, April 11–14
Thousands of science educators will meet at the NSTA National Conference on Science Education to immerse themselves in their primary passion. More than 2000 sessions offer a range of learning experiences-on content, critical issues, classroom strategies, inspirational speakers, new products, and field trips to national landmarks such as the Enchanted Rock State Natural Area. Check out some of the special events:
- Elementary Extravaganza—Friday, April 12, 8:00–10:00 a.m.: Engaging hands-on activities, strategies to excite and encourage your students, a preview of the best trade books available, information about award opportunities, contacts with elementary science organizations, sharing with colleagues, and door prizes and “take-aways.”
- Informal Science Day—Saturday, April 13, 7:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m.: Packed with exciting informal science presentations and activities, It is designed to offer a "town square" where science educators can share best practices in informal science, learn about exciting collaborations, network with colleagues, and dialogue around ideas and innovations. Informal organizations represented include zoos, museums, media, after-school programs, university outreach, and others that provide and/or support out-of-school science education.
- Teacher Researcher Day—Saturday, April 13, 8:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m.: Learn how to better understand what is happening in the classroom and how to improve teaching and learning.
- Exemplary Science Program—An ESP symposium has been scheduled at the San Antonio conference, featuring brief descriptions of programs that exemplify how the four NSES goals have been met. The discussants will be drawn from authors of chapters from several monographs in the series.
- Day the Mesozoic Died (on the Big Screen)—Thursday, April 11, 6:30–8:00 p.m.: This film follows the trail of scientific evidence leading to the stunning discovery that an asteroid struck the Earth 66 million years ago triggering a mass extinction of dinosaurs. Enjoy the film, popcorn, a drink, and a free DVD of the film. Compliments of Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
- Flinn Scientific Morning of Chemistry—Friday, April 12, 10:00–11:30 a.m.: Bob Becker will present 20 chemical demonstrations with color changes and kabooms. Illustration of valuable teaching principles.
- Just Physics—Friday, April 12, 5:00–7:00pm: Live physics demonstrations, food, fun, free t-shirt. Compliments of PASCO Scientific.
- NSTA Conference Night with the Spurs—Friday, April 12: Special on tickets to watch NBA Championship team with free throw and photo on the court after the game.
- NSTA Author Sessions (22)—Listen to renowned authors talk about their strategies and experiences teaching science to kids, Page Keeley, Steve Rich, Bill Robertson, Anne Tweed, Emily Morgan and Karen Ansberry, among many more.
To view all the events and sessions scheduled for the conference, visit www.nsta.org/SanAntonio and use the scheduler. The advance deadline is March 15, so register now.
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Learn more about NSTA e-newsletter sponsorships
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Visit our member services web page to ensure that NSTA has your current contact information. And when the time comes to renewselect the "Autorenew" option!
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the NSTA Science Store for an outstanding array of bestselling books and teaching resources. Receive 30% off the price of the March featured book, The Big Ideas of Nanoscale Science and Engineering: A Guidebook for Secondary Teachers.
Click on the logo above for more information and to register for these free professional development opportunities.