Reflections on NSTA 2024

During March 20-23th, Isabel Delgado and Noelia Báez Rodríguez, traveled to Denver, Colorado to participate at the National Science Teacher Association (NSTA) Annual Conference. This conference was filled with valuable and diverse options for science teachers, science teacher educators, pre-service teachers, instructional coaches, among other diverse groups. The exhibit hall, concurrent sessions and workshops were highly organized and diverse in topics. The spirit of the conference was inspirational and of appreciation for the science education community. The experience was rich and full of many educational experiences. We were able to connect with many members of our national community of practices. The keynotes speaker sessions were very inspirational and emotional, highlighting the importance of science teachers in the lives of their students. It was during the first keynote speaker session, Dr. Adolph Brown, that we met a group of science teachers and professors from the BIORETS project of the University of Puerto Rico. We immediately realized that we need to travel 6 hours by plane to find out about the amazing work that our colleagues do as part of the BIORETS project. Immediately we exchanged our information about workshop sessions. There were many data science oriented workshops that are closely related to the work we do as part of the Data Jam Project in Puerto Rico. For example, the workshop titled: Play with your data: Making Climate Data tangible through art by Alexandra Rose, one of our Network LTER Ed representatives and her colleagues from Colorado, highlight the importance of connecting the arts, culture with data science.They presented many examples of transporting data into something concrete and visual, facilitating the process of understanding phenomena and changes in the environments to a broader community.

Data Jam team workshop:

LTER Data Jam: Students make Data their Jam

A brief description of the LTER Data Jam Project in Puerto Rico was presented followed by a workshop focused on modeling the Looking at Student Work Protocol used during the 2023-2024 virtual lab meetings. Participants were able to use the protocol to analyze actual student responses to the third challenge of the Data Jam Project. They worked in groups and used different colored post-its for each round of the protocol. Afterwards, they were able to reflect upon the protocol and how they could integrate it into their practice.

The participants’ demography was composed of  science teachers, biology university professor and formal and informal science educators, NARST representative Michael Bowen.

Isabel’s favorite session:

What is the difference between weather and climate? by Brett Thomsen (Science Department Head: Chimacum, WA) and Laura Tucker (Consultant: Port Townsend, WA)

Session description: Using a probe from the popular “Uncovering Student Misconceptions” series, the co-author will share student responses to address this key concept for teaching climate change.

During this session, I was able to unpack student misconceptions about weather and climate, which I believe is key for understanding climate change. The session was very practical and also research based upon the most common misconceptions students have towards both topics. The probes developed by the authors help teachers unpack previous conceptions regarding topics of Earth and Environmental Science and how to address them in their science courses.

Noelia’s favorite session

Data-Driven Ecosystems Students Research by Monica Wright, science teacher from Bath Middle School in Maine

Session description: How students improve data literary and scientific communication skills by investigating a relevant question.

During this session, I was able to learn from an established and successful long term monitoring program conducted by a science teacher. In this semester experience, students engage with science inquiry by doing field work and collecting and analyzing data, and submission of paper through peer review process and eventually, publish their findings in a Journal called Finding from The Field. The investigation topic is related to the abundance of invasive carbs over time in the coast of Maine. The students analyze 11 years of data using CODAP and also they get to share some of their findings at school events. It is a great model to learn from it as we are in the process of revamping the Luquillo LTER Schoolyard field protocols. My main take away from this is that a rich experience could be provided to middle school students by guiding them in all the elements of the scientific process.