STEMAZing Workshops
These hands-on workshops put educators into the seats and minds of their students. Workshops range from a few hours to multi-day events and include the equipment and supplies teachers need to implement these activities in their own classrooms.
Registration now open! Explore all your PD options below.
June 12-14, 2018
Take geometry instruction to the next level using Zometools, a geometric construction set, and origami. Empower students to explore symmetry and discover how nature “chooses” its shapes. Inspire students to seek connections between geometry and art. Come learn from master middle and high school mathematics educator and Einstein Fellow Emeritus, Peg Cagle, how to effectively use both Zometools and origami to take your students on creative learning adventures. Each teacher will receive a Zometools STEAM kit and origami supplies valued at more than $300.
Audience: 4th-12th Grade Educators
Cubetto is a robot designed specifically to engage our youngest learners. Using what looks like a wooden puzzle, children learn coding and computer programming in tactile ways. Make learning to code even more fun for children using the maps and story books to take Cubetto on different adventures. As children progress through the various adventures with Cubetto, they can also learn about functions, loops, and logic blocks. You will walk away from this strand empowered to cultivate the coding and computational thinking minds of the young children you work with in the classroom. Teacher teams will receive a Cubetto Deluxe kit, Logic Blocks, and a Logic Pack. Everything you need to take our youngest learners on coding adventures is included in the $400 kit.
Audience: PreK-2nd Grade Teachers
APPLICATION REQUIRED: To attend this strand, you must first apply as a team (two teachers from the same school). If you are accepted, your team will receive the passcode to register. Applications will be reviewed in the order received and approved for registration until the strand fills.
Edison robots are the best, most affordable robot platform for engaging students with computational thinking skill building and computer programming. Spend three days getting to know your Edison robots starting with a day connecting programming challenges and lessons to The Wild Robot by Peter Brown. You will learn how to code Edisons starting with a simple bar code scan and progressing through drag-and-drop block programming, similar to Scratch™, and ending with Python – a legitimate programming language used in the real world. Using the new EdCreate kit from Microbric, you will also get to nest robots together to build the EdTank, EdDigger, EdRoboClaw, EdCrane, and EdPrinter. Teacher teams will receive a STEMAZing kit with 12 robots, 1 EduMat, 6 EdCreate kits, spare parts kit, rechargeable batteries and more. Everything you need to establish a small army of programmable robots will be included in the STEMAZing kit valued at more than $600.
Audience: K-12th Grade Teachers
APPLICATION REQUIRED: To attend this strand, you must first apply as a team (two teachers from the same school). If you are accepted, your team will receive the passcode to register. Applications will be reviewed in the order received and approved for registration until the strand fills.
June 19-21, 2018
Electrify your classroom with water and energy challenges specific to Arizona! Explore solar energy production by hacking $1 solar garden lights and engage in engineering design challenges that utilize water and energy. Create a model for the Central Arizona Project and see if your team can use solar energy to pump water over a mountain. From the science of energy to the complexities of the watershed we live in, learn about both the energy and water systems and how they are inherently connected together. Leave with $200 worth of equipment and supplies for classroom use and a curriculum unit on water and energy: Water Energy World.
Audience: 4th-12th Grade Teachers
Whether you have already have a farm at school or would like to establish a school garden, you will take away new and exciting ideas about how to best cultivate the STEM minds of students using your space. Learn from experienced school gardeners how they are utilizing their farms as living laboratories to explore science, technology, engineering, and math with their students. This strand will focus on developing and fully utilizing school gardens as learning spaces, the rules about using produce in the classroom and for food service, simple hydroponic systems, and much more. Each participant will receive a STEMAZing kit worth $200 to bolster their gardening programs.
Audience: PreK-8th Grade Teachers
