On my last day in Portland I was able to do a bit of sightseeing.  The aerial tram was quite impressive and perhaps my favorite sightseeing adventure.  The tram was completed in December 2006 for a cost of $57 million dollars.  It stretches 3,300 feet from the South Waterfront terminal to the main campus of OHSU.  I met some doctors who regularly use the train to commute to work.  Very cool!

It only takes just a few minutes to ride to the top, but you get a glorious view of the city.  Mount Hood was just barely peaking over the clouds on my trip.  The train attendant joked that he uses the mountain to determine the weather forecast.  He said, “If you can see the mountain, it’s just about to rain.  If you can’t see the mountain—it’s raining.”

I made a very short video of my trip on the tram.  For more information on the tram go to portlandtram.org.

I missed out on the OMSI and the Zoo.  Maybe next time!  I’d like to hear about teacher experiences at each of those venues.  Of course, I think most of us are still recuperating from all the fun and getting ready to sit down to our Thanksgiving dinner.

So, Happy Holidays!  I hope to see everyone again at the next NSTA conference!

Every time I go to a NSTA conference I become better at picking the sessions that will best suit my needs. This year was definitely my best.  I had a fantastic time in Portland! I spoke with dozens of teachers who traveled from all over the country—North Carolina, Texas, Illinois, and, of course, the Northwest—and they all had a great conference experience.

I’ve come away from the conference a better teacher with new ideas and strategies to help my students learn science.  One of my favorite presenters was Tara Richardson who talked about changing the way we use grading in the classroom.  I plan on implementing her strategy slowly into most of my classes.  What were your favorite sessions?

The exhibit hall was a lot of fun.  I met so many exciting people who were eager to help me find items to enrich my classroom.  Kevin McAndrew from Earthwatch, an organization that sends students and teachers on research expeditions, was incredibly funny and nice to meet.  Julie Mathern from Bio-Rad was also very helpful.  I’ve always loved using their kits and was excited to learn that if I lead a training workshop in my district, Bio-Rad will reward me with one of their products!  I’m certain that similar exhibitors probably offer the same deal if you just ask them.  That’s one of the reasons why I always encourage teachers to go to NSTA conferences and always ask lots of questions.  You never know what little bonuses you will find!

What exhibitors did you come across that you liked?

The Oregon Zoo brought a couple of cute (and not so cute) animals to their booth.  Alas, I couldn’t hold one, but they were fun to see.

The one thing I regretfully missed was the Mythbusters and the Jean Auel presentation!  Anyone care to share any details?  Overall, how was your conference experience?

—Stacy Baker

It was exciting to be in the midst of so many people who care about teaching and learning science, and a pleasure to anticipate being on the receiving end of lesson planning. I’m looking forward to using what other educators thought was important enough to share.  More on this later, in the comments …

Peggy

A town in which science is on display in the mass transit system is the perfect place for an NSTA conference. In Portland’s only underground station (70 meters under ground), there is a 200-foot long core sample contained in a glass tube, representing 15.6 million years of geological activity. Click on the picture above to see more of the core sample and the accompanying exhibit information, as well as some images from the Hoyt Arboretum above. Better yet, hop on a MAX blue or red line train and head west.

More than 60 educators crowded into room C124 at the Convention Center this afternoon to ponder the imponderable: the size and scale of the universe?

With humor and knowledge Herb Koller, a retired high school teacher representing Imaginova Corp, demonstrated how teachers can use the Starry Night astronomy program in the classroom to help students gain perspective on distances in space. Whether you were looking to learn about our solar system or prefer to consider all that is beyond, the program had something, and lesson plans, too.

Have you ever thought about writing for an NSTA journal?

Get the tools you need at Write (Right) from the Start. After an overview of the manuscript submission process, editors of all four journals (Science and Children, Science Scope, The Science Teacher, and the Journal of College Science Teaching) give personal feedback to propsective writers.

You can get some of the benefits of this session online at www.nsta.org/pdfs/writestart.pdf.

Find calls for papers for all four journals at www.nsta.org.

Look for the next Write For session in New Orleans!

Overly political, endlessly complicated…and standing-room only, featured speaker Dr. Philip Mote had a receptive audience for his climate change talk. Coauthor (with 100+ participating scientists) of the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report, Mote’s humor-filled talk began with the popular representations of climate change and how they affect public perception. The scientific portion focused on a “dialogue with a skeptic” and featured clear evidence (that only lost me on the modeling part). It’s not every day you get to hear a Nobel Prize winning scientist speak!

For more information, visit http://www.ipcc.ch/index.htm.

Need a pick me up after a full day of NSTA conference sessions? Head to Cacao, a chocolate shop with the feel of an asian tea house. A shot of “drinking chocolate”–think a liquid chocolate bar, not a powdered mix—only costs $2.

Portland has a lot to offer, but if you only have time for one thing, make it Powell’s. The largest independent bookstore in the world fills a city block and features used gems tucked among the enormous selection–including a science and an education section. Plan on spending hours here! (they are open until 11)

At 30,000 feet dirt roads carve giant geoglyphs into the brown scrub, looking like ancient Peruvian figures. Basalt lava flows are evident in the Nevada desert, and the Grand Canyon which appeared outside my right side window seat just a few hours ago, sparkled with the turquoise Colorado River nestled in canyons of purple, red, salmon, and caramel.

The impact of millennial and more recent changes on the local landscape is so readily evident from up here. Short of flying into orbit, I can’t imagine a better place to see the far reach of human development, while at the same time the vast spaces that look as if no human has tread there.

I’m flying across the country to talk to teachers in the Pacific Northwest about NSTA’s journals, books, and online media. Soon the dry, vast desert will transform into the verdant, wet, asparagus green of Portland, Oregon. Mt. Hood will be out there somewhere, probably shrouded in clouds. The trees and rocks will be foreign to this child of the Eastern Piedmont. Where’s an Earth Science teacher when I need one. Oh, there’s one.  “Hey, I have a question…”