Tag Archives: featured speaker

With STEM, almost everything is possible

By Debra Shapiro | Published: November 11, 2011
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In New Orleans, we heard from DARPA’s Geoffrey Ling about an amazing medical breakthrough.

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The scoop on the Next Generation Science Standards

By Debra Shapiro | Published: November 10, 2011
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Stephen Pruitt enlightened conference attendees about the standards and asked them to lead the way for implementation in their states.

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Morgan Fairchild on science ed and the economy

By Debra Shapiro | Published: November 10, 2011
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Who knew that actress Morgan Fairchild knew so much about science? “I was the original science nerd,” she told the audience during her keynote speech this morning. She said that when she first came to Hollywood, her first stop was not the beauty salon, but the La Brea tar pits.

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Capitalizing on curiosity

By Claire Reinburg | Published: March 12, 2011
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Featured speaker Larry Lowery’s lively presentation at the San Francisco NSTA conference highlighted research findings about how children learn to inspire teachers to incorporate new practices in their classrooms. Lowery encouraged teachers to further expand students’ opportunities to learn and explore using their various senses.  He showed a functional MRI image to illustrate the lit-up [...]

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A strand of pearls

By Debra Shapiro | Published: February 19, 2010
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Are you an urban or rural educator seeking pearls of wisdom for engaging your students? Plan to attend the NSTA National Conference in Philadelphia. The conference will give you those “pearls” through a strand of sessions entitled Meeting the Unique Needs of Urban and Rural Learners.

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Conference request

By Mary Bigelow | Published: January 20, 2010
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My colleague and I are hoping to attend NSTA’s national conference this year, our first. The school has funds to cover some of the costs, but one of the school board members says conferences are just excuses to lounge around and play golf! What can we do to convince him otherwise? —Brianna, Wilmington, Delaware Hmm. [...]

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Inquiry, evidence, and thinking: the heart of science teaching

By Tyson Brown | Published: November 17, 2009
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An enthusiastic crowd joined NSTA Past President Michael Padilla Thursday and were rewarded with an engaging workshop on inquiry. Padilla’s presentation emphasized the thinking skills all students will need in the workforce of the future, whether in a tire factory or a vaccine lab. Peppered with Gary Larson cartoons and beginning with a logic exercise, [...]

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Background on the Minneapolis conference program

By Tyson Brown | Published: October 5, 2009
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Recently, we asked Jean Tushie for a little insight into how her committee settled on the theme and strands for the Minneapolis conference: It’s absolutely amazing how early the planning for a NSTA Area Conference begins. We started our process in the summer of 2008.  After the conference chairs were named, we met to determine our [...]

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Secretary of Education addresses NSTA National Conference

By Lynn Petrinjak | Published: March 22, 2009
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One of the conference highlights was a speech by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. He gave an inspiring talk on the importance of science and science education. For more information and a video of his speech, go to the NSTA website. Later in the Exhibit Hall, I stopped by the US Department of Education booth. [...]

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The “cool” Darwin and the intersection of western science and native knowledge

By Lynn Petrinjak | Published: March 19, 2009
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Presenter Mark Plotkin seemed to enjoy being back in his native New Orleans earlier today as he talked about native cultures, Western science, and finding ways to use one to enhance the other. He encouraged attendees to make evolution relevant to their students by talking about the “cool Darwin.” Instead of the common photo of [...]

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