What are we up to?
June 12-13: TASSP Summer Workshop Exhibit
We will exhibit at the Texas Association of Secondary School Principals Summer Workshop in Austin. If you are at the meeting, stop by Booth 427 and say hi. We would love to discuss how students can use the new TEKS to explore phenomena in student-centered classrooms.
May 14: National Science Teaching Association Presentation
On May 14th at 7pm Eastern, Sharon Cates and colleagues will give an online seminar entitled Assessment of Sensemaking Through the Crosscutting Concepts. This will be the final session in an NSTA series about the CCCs.
Speakers: Leah Litz (Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium), Rebecca Abbott (Lawrence Hall of Science), and Sharon Cates.
April 27: Maine Science Teachers Association Exhibit
On Saturday, April 27th, we will exhibit at MSTA’s 2024 Science For All meeting at the Blueberry Cove 4-H Club in St. George.
We look forward to supporting Maine’s Science Teachers!
April 8: Eclipse Phenomena
In 2017, we traveled to Casper, WY to collect classroom phenomena related to the solar eclipse.
On April 8th, 2024, most of North America experienced another total eclipse.
We deployed to Burlington, Vermont and Cleveland, Ohio to improve the phenomena that we collected in 2017 and to collect some new ones. We took a multitude of photographs and collected air temperature and light data across the period of totality. These photos and data will be incorporated into forthcoming library entities and a forthcoming Quest focused on NGSS performance expectation MS-ESS1-1.
March 20-23: National Science Teaching Association Exhibit
We exhibited at the NSTA conference in Denver. Thanks to everyone who stopped by Booth 433 to say hi. We enjoyed talking with you!
March 23: National Science Teaching Association Presentation
On March 23rd, Josh Smith and colleagues facilitated a discussion on opportunities for teachers to improve their teaching and help advance and improve science education while remaining in the classroom.
Thanks to everyone who showed up and asked questions!
Panel: Josh Smith, Leah Litz (Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium), Roy Arezzo (Retired Science Teacher, New York), Tim Lundt (Merit Academy), Shari Brady (Kaleideum), and John Loehr (Science Olympiad).
March 21: National Science Teaching Association Presentation
On March 21st, Sharon Cates and colleagues presented Assessment of Sensemaking Through the Crosscutting Concepts. Part of an NSTA short course on the Crosscutting Concepts, their session discussed writing classroom assessment questions and prompts aligned to the CCC dimension.
Speakers: Rebecca Abbott (Lawrence Hall of Science), Sharon Cates, and Leah Litz (Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium).
Thanks to everyone who attended and made this a stimulating session!
March 21: National Science Teaching Association Presentation
On March 21st, Sharon Cates and colleagues kicked off a multi-session short course on the utility of the Crosscutting Concepts at the NSTA meeting in Denver.
Speakers: Rebecca Garelli (Arizona Science Teachers Association), Rebecca Abbott (Lawrence Hall of Science), Sharon Cates, Kimberley Astle (Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction), and Leah Litz (Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium).
Thanks to everyone who showed up early and made this kickoff great!
March 18: Geological Society of America Presentation
On March 18, Josh Smith, Sharon Cates, and Mela Heestand (Desert of Maine) gave a talk at the GSA conference in Manchester, New Hampshire.
They discussed a newly identified science phenomenon in coastal Maine that is aligned to NGSS middle school performance expectation MS-ESS1-4.
MS-ESS1-4 is about relative geologic age. But because of the way it is written, it is kind of problematic.
The way MS-ESS1-4 is written forces us to find phenomena that involve a numerically dated rock layer that is related to a major event in Earth history. This layer needs to have other layers nearby that are either older or younger. Students need to be able to compare the relative ages of these older or younger layers to the dated layer.
Finding such an occurrence might not sound that hard, but finding one that is also grade-level appropriate is actually far easier said than done. However, we found such a phenomenon while doing excavations at the Desert of Maine in September 2020. This real-world example involves 15,000-year-old marine sands that sit directly against 20th century sand dune deposits. The marine sands are related to the last Ice Age and we have good age control on both the marine sands and the dune sands. This phenomenon aligns nicely to MS-ESS1-4 and it works for both classroom activities and assessments.
Abstract: Joshua B. Smith*, Mela J. Heestand, and Sharon E. Cates, 2024, A Phenomenon Aligned to Next Generation Science Standard Performance Expectation MS-ESS1-4 at the Desert of Maine in Freeport. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs 56(1): doi: 10.1130/abs/2024NE-397402.
March 18: Geological Society of America Presentation
On March 18, Josh Smith gave a talk at the GSA conference in Manchester, New Hampshire.
The presentation was part of a theme session on undergraduate geoscience field camps. Josh argued against cutting topics like land navigation and map reading from these courses and tried to make the case that although virtually every field geologist now carries a GPS device on their person, knowing how to get around using a compass and a topo map is still very relevant and important.
It was a great session with some very good conversation.
Abstract: Joshua B. Smith, 2024, An argument for maintaining pace-and-compass land navigation and map reading as topics within geoscience field camp curricula. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs 56(1): doi: 10.1130/abs/2024NE-397394.
Older News from This year:
March 20th: NSELA Leadership Summit
On March 20th, Sharon and Josh attended the National Science Education Leadership Association Summit in Denver.
Focused on equity and inclusion for all students, the meeting was productive and stimulating. Here's to the organizing committee for a great event.
February 27th: NSTA Presentation
On February 27th, Sharon Cates and colleages gave an online seminar for NSTA. Entitled Transforming Science Learning: Introduction to the Crosscutting Concepts, it focused on the Crosscutting Concepts as powerful lenses and tools for student sensemaking.
Speakers: Kimberley Astle (Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction), Leah Litz (Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium), Rebecca Abbott (Lawrence Hall of Science), Rebecca Garelli (Arizona Science Teachers Association), Sharon Cates, and Zoe Evans (Bremen City Schools).
Thanks to everyone who attended the presentation!
February 18th: HASTI/ICTM Presentation
On February 18th, Sharon Cates and Josh Smith ran a workshop at the 2024 Hoosier Association of Science Teachers/Indiana Council of Teachers of Mathematics meeting in Indianapolis. Entitled What are phenomena and how do they work with the new Indiana Science Standards?, the session covered how teachers can effectively use phenomena with Indiana’s new three-dimensional, K-12 Framework-based science standards. We thank those who attended for a great session with some vibrant discussion.
We’d also like to thank everyone who stopped by Booth 57 to chat. We enjoyed talking with you.