Get your students interested in science and cover half of the standards. Solar-cooking allows teachers to explore climate change, energy conduction, convection, electromagnetic-spectrum, and issues facing non-renewable energy resources.

We will be building igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks that you and your students will enjoy making and learning about. Lesson plans and worksheets included—get ready to get building!

Learn about a program that includes teacher internships, a summer institute on physical science demonstrations, and an ROP science careers course with internships for students. Receive a DVD of some of the demonstrations.

Want to expand and refresh your labs and activities? Learn 48 low-cost, high-interest activities straight from the classroom. All worksheets and instructions included. Expect demonstration, discussion, and example assignment giveaways.

Can your students calculate moles given mass and atomic mass? In this workshop you make, use, and learn to teach sliderule to solve science math problems.

Learn about NASA’s Saturn science and language arts program, “Reading, Writing & Rings” and other Saturn educator resources. Teachers will receive free curriculum materials and learn how to use them.

The author of the Conceptual Physics Laboratory Manual will give a presentation of his favorite physics labs and demonstrations. Attendees will receive a DVD of his favorite physics video clips.

Fun explorations engage young students in physical science through hands-on investigations with magnets. Activities build prior knowledge, preparing students for the magnetic principles covered at the next grade levels.

Receive an introduction to the California Coastal Commission’s science activity guide, Waves, Wetlands, and Watersheds, and find out about other free resources available from the commission. (CEEIN)

With just a few materials you can make models of Earth’s layers, role play the rock cycle, take a virtual geology field trip, and locate earthquake epicenters by triangulating seismic data. (CAS)

Learn a structured way to use science notebooks to enhance learning in your classroom. Practice using notebooks yourself by delving into a hands-on lesson that focuses on the scientific process. (CAS)

6th grade curriculum to teach the fire triangle, heat transfer, and the history of wildfires. Students will create defensible space plans for their homes and measure and predict wildfire danger. (CEEIN)

Participants will learn how to use a cheese-making activity to teach scientific methodologies and to illustrate how biotechnology has impacted an industry.

Analyze a suggested scope and sequence of measuring skills for grades K-5 by trying out metric tools and exploring sample hands-on activities for elementary students.

Learn how to make an inexpensive near-IR camera and investigate properties of infrared radiation in the classroom. Make IR measurable, visible, and audible, and test the transmission, reflection, and refraction of IR.

A well-planned unit on the kelp forest and open ocean environments. A veteran teacher will share personal lessons, student contracts, graphic organizers, student samples, and assessment rubrics.

This session will introduce teachers to the science and engineering behind wind energy. Explore ideas and lesson plans on how to teach about wind energy concepts in K-12 classrooms.

Turn basic physics activities into engaging inquiry lessons that will excite your students while discovering the misconceptions students have in learning science. Hands-on workshop and giveaways.

Finally, project-based learning that brings issues into the traditional middle and high school schedule and relates them to science standards. Join our community of educators implementing this manageable, fun project.

Your students already have no problem talking in class? But do they talk respectfully and productively? Learn strategies to help students enhance their science learning by talking.

Learn how to utilize online lab experiments, blogs, and online testing in your high school science classroom to prepare students for higher education in the 21st century.

Learn how scientists use visible light to study the sun through activities to understand spectroscopy. Experiment with simple cardboard spectroscopes and sign up to receive free spectroscopes for your classroom.

Forest ecosystems provide resources humans depend upon: water, carbon, and soil. Learn about forest sustainability and take home Project Learning Tree's module and map, "Global Connections—Forests of the World". (CEEIN)

Need new ideas to engage young students to explore the natural world? Try out PLT's new early childhood experiences. Take home a free activity guide and a music/movement CD. (CEEIN)

This session will explore simple modifications to SIOP in vocabulary instruction, background building, standards, and scaffolding inquiry to meet the needs of ELs while teaching inquiry science.

Join us to explore photosynthesis and cellular respiration through hands-on investigation, active role-playing, and discussion. Leave the workshop with classroom-ready activities and a clearer understanding of these essential processes. (CAS)

Engage your students with hands-on science and technology by using national marine sanctuaries as living classrooms. Find out how to get involved and pick up free goodies. (COSEE/SWMEA)

NSTA's Learning Center (http://learningcenter.nsta.org) provides hundreds of standards-aligned resources available 24/7. Personalize your portfolio; build a library of resources. Accountability tools available for directors and principals. Laptops optional.

This action-packed and hands-on workshop will introduce you to Project WET (Water Education for Teachers) and the role of science in understanding the formation and monitoring of California groundwater supplies. (CEEIN)

A demonstration of experiments to teach gas laws and physical properties using inexpensive and readily available materials. Experiments are safe and suitable for performance by students.

There’s No New Water! is a water conservation and water quality curriculum for high school students. Participants will engage in hands-on, inquiry-based experiences that investigate local watersheds and societal issues.

Coloring maps and writing about their observations helps students learn California geology. Topics include geologic provinces, rainfall, population, and natural hazards. Handouts include maps, questions, and sample writing prompts.

Teach your students with enthusiasm using renewable resource hands-on activities. Learn about the grants available to purchase cool hands-on resources to captivate your students learning about non-polluting renewable resources.

Make spaceship Earth real-we are all astronauts. Unique, simple kinesthetic lesson teaches students the direction the Earth spins, orbits around the sun, amazing speeds. Accessible organizers, mnemonic learning techniques.

Yes you are! Learn to bring biology field methods into your classroom by working with curriculum developers to design your own field journals and program adapted to your learning environment. (CAS)

Putting the puzzle pieces together: Check out how we have incorporated PLC, backwards mapping, ICONS, technology, EL, and other instructional strategies into one fun and engaging academic cell biology unit.

This interactive workshop will involve science content with classroom practices that promote comprehension and academic language for all students. Handouts and materials will be provided. (CSP)

Learn how to supervise and grade science PowerPoint projects. The student chooses a topic, determines a thesis, conducts research, creates slides, and presents to the class. Scoring guides provided.

We will examine how students learn the concept of "states of matter" in their movement from a naïve to sophisticated level of science understanding within a learning progression.

Assessing inquiry is essential to instruction. Participants will engage in a hands-on performance task and explore the uses and advantages of this form of assessment.

This session is designed to provide teachers the tools to work with real oceanographic, climatic, and polar data in the classroom and field. It will provide hands-on and computer-based activities. (COSEE/SWMEA)

Are we taking advantage of our students' 21st century skills to prepare them for careers and learning in the 21st century? Come see how the use of technology resources such as YouTube, podcasting, and wikis can be integrated into your classroom.

Teach manipulative-based chemistry using a paper “chemistry set.” This inexpensive manipulative tool is highly effective in enabling the student to master fundamentals of 8th grade chemistry standards.

Use free digital media-based resources from KQED Public Media, including video and audio, interactive diagrams and standards-based lessons, to engage middle school students in learning about climate.

Wean students off Wikipedia by making them Wikipedia editors. Students experience Wikipedia’s shortcomings first-hand, then find and use credible sources of information to edit and create original Wikipedia articles.

Learn about solar energy while meeting your content standards. Explore scientific concepts of solar energy through hands-on activities for K-5 grade levels. Interdisciplinary activities reinforce the science behind solar energy.

Come and explore an approach that puts students to work reasoning in authentic ways. You will learn about the approach and experience activities that will help you understand it better. (CSP)

Introduction to designing a project-based learning unit applicable to any content area. In our example project, students learn about waves while designing, building, and performing on home-made instruments.

Learn how to make a class-size DNA extraction kit with readily available materials and experience the protocol, including a lesson plan illustrating how to incorporate inquiry. (CSP)

Too many standards, no time! Experience hands-on lessons connecting key ideas in motion and forces and walk away with a conceptual flow and lesson activities to support a motion unit. (K-12A)

Inquiry is an essential part of the science classroom, yet it is often overlooked as standards and high stakes testing crowd the time it takes for students to investigate. Learn how you can take time to develop students' thinking skills by focusing on science process. (K-12A)

Underground hip-hop sensation MC Dub will teach you how to write a science-based rap song and perform it with your class. Leave with a CD and lyrics.

Probing for Student Understanding, an NSTA publication, provides probes for assessments. Probes provide data for analyzing student learning, misconceptions, and interventions. Participants will receive sample probes and a process for developing probes. (K-12A)

Explore an integrated math/science activity that builds student confidence in using mathematics to describe phenomena. Measurement and ratio give us clues to the shape, density, and speed of unseen objects. (K-12A)

Learn about the infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum and what astronomers learn by studying the universe using space telescopes sensitive to infrared, like NASA's WISE mission.

Explore hands-on, standards-based activities to help your students grasp the size and scale of the universe and learn about one of NASA’s latest missions to investigate the universe, WISE.

This hands-on environmental science workshop models strategies and center-based activities to teach San Francisco Bay watershed ecology, pollutants in bay food chains, and environmental justice using scientific inquiry.

Learn to use STEM Stories (www.stemstories.org), a free multimedia collection that highlights the lives and work of scientists (especially women). Includes their investigation methods and simulated experiments for students.

We will build a model pond with live organisms while exploring the use of evidence-based talk, notebooking, and drawing to guide the development of scientific observation skills in early elementary students. (COSEE/SWMEA)

Learn how readily available videoconferencing technology can connect your classroom to the field. Live, interactive, inexpensive; it’s all produced by your own students.

Learn how screen capturing software can record your science lessons as video files. Students can review lessons from home and at their own pace. Great as an intervention tool.

Learn how computer simulations can assess and teach major ecology concepts integrated with investigation skills in an engaging format. Offline activities provide targeted remediation for student misunderstandings revealed by assessments.

The interactive notebook along with other effective strategies is a tool used to deepen students' understanding of academic content through active participation in the learning process. (CSP)

This session is a scope and sequence of biology standards to improve learning in students through project-based units. Unit plans are directed towards low performing schools with few resources.

Participants will learn how to: (1) integrate mathematics standards into the high school chemistry curriculum to improve chemistry achievement, (2) design and implement a standards-based integrated curriculum, (3) develop and analyze formative assessments, and (4) use the results to drive instruction.

Dissect a squid while exploring inquiry-based techniques for teaching about adaptations and actively engaging students. Learn how to guide a student-centered dissection while addressing life science standards. (COSEE/SWMEA)

Get a fresh perspective on an important topic: acids and bases. This presentation will show you how to introduce and incorporate acid and bases in a biology and chemistry course.

New to the California Science Education Conference? CSTA board members and experience conference goers will give you a warm welcome and show you the ropes. You’ll get the inside scoop on where to go, what to do, and how to make the most of your conference experience.

Learn about new approaches teachers can use to teach the ocean literacy scope and sequence. Scientists and educators worked together for two years on an ocean sciences curriculum sequence, grades 3-5.