GSTA 2021 Conference

GSTA has made the difficult decision to terminate the contract with the Cobb Galleria for the 2021 GSTA Conference. There were penalties in the contract that would have caused us to lose a significant amount of money (60% of the conference fees) if we needed to cancel after June 2. With the uncertainities of Covid and potential school budget cuts, we felt it was best to terminate. We will still hold a conference. It will more likely be online, but we may try to hold face to face sessions as appropriate. We are working on our plans to support teachers with online PD and resources and will be back in touch with more details. If you have questions or ideas, please reach out to president@georgiascienceteacher.org

The theme for the conference is "Making Connections" and we look forward to sharing the strands soon and opening up proposals for sessions. More details soon!

We are STILL going to be offering three short courses on Saturday, February 6th and we will open up registration again soon.

Saturday Short Course: Creating Your Own Storylines (6-12) - Illinois Science Teachers Association Storyline Working Group

The Illinois Science Teachers Association is known for their biology storyline which has been shared nationally: https://www.ilscience.org/Storyline. They have formed a Storyline Working Group to share their planning strategies with teachers. They will offer a keynote session at the conference and will present a Saturday short course on how to develop storyline lessons. Teachers are encouraged to attend as grade level teams. Storyline lessons are lessons that use phenomena to coherently engage students in content, crosscutting concepts, and the science and engineering practices.This session will be geared towards 6-12 science teachers.

Saturday Short Course: Misconceptions & Formative Assessments (K-12) Page Keeley

Join Page Keeley, author of the Uncovering Student Ideas in Science Formative Assessment Probes, Science Formative Assessment Strategies, and Teaching Conceptual Understanding as she provides insight to student misconceptions and how formative assessment strategies can enhance student learning. This session will be geared towards earth, life, and physical science teachers of grades K-12.

Saturday Short Course: Keeping Science at the Center of Elementary STEAM Learning (K-5) Jeremy Peacock

As elementary schools make the shift from STEM to STEAM, it can be challenging to balance the new focus on the Arts with effective science instruction. We know that science and art can have a mutualistic relationship, and many great scientists also display great artistic talent and creativity. So, how can you balance science and art while also integrating technology, math, and engineering and not making STEAM "just one more thing" in your classroom? We will share a STEAM planning framework, along with classroom examples, that meaningfully integrates STEAM components to help students become well-rounded problem solvers and critical thinkers. This session will be geared towards teachers of K-5.

GSTA Collection of Online Teaching Resources

GSTA is continuing to organize online teaching resources for science teachers. We are planning online professional learning for teachers for June & Juy. Stay tuned for details! If you have lessons you would like to share, please email: president@georgiascienceteacher.org. Please consider following GSTA our social media platforms. We have communities that are sharing resources and ideas. You can follow us @GSTANews on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Please consider adding resources to the GSTA phenomena bank.

Donald White of Coweta Schools has posted several online lessons in the district science updates newsletter. You can find K-5 lessons at:https://www.smore.com/p6b2k and 6-12 lessons at: https://www.smore.com/5dqvj

Jeremy Peacock has added a phenomenon on the Covid-19 at the GSTA phenomena bank. NSTA also has elementary and secondary lessons on the coronavirus at nsta.org