STEMAZing Workshops
These hands-on, minds-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.
Our youngest learners can build their identities as computer programmers starting in preschool! Join us for three days of coding experiences designed for our youngest learners. Start with offline coding games with a foundation in fairy tales using #STEMontheCheap materials and work your way into programming an actual robot as you engage with new stories to share with your students. Cubetto is a robot designed specifically to engage our youngest learners. Using what looks like a wooden puzzle, children (and you) 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. 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
Location: College of Education at the University of Arizona
Date and Time: June 11-13, 2019 - 8:00 am to 3:30 pm
Cost: Just $75 per person - you get breakfast & lunch everyday and ~$400 worth of STEM loot!
NOTE: Team of two required - you must apply for this strand with a colleague.
Using a collection of building bricks, educators can teach crosscutting concepts about matter in biology, chemistry, and earth science. Join Dr. Amanda Mayer, a native Tucsonan who now works at the MIT Edgerton Center, as she walks you through the LEGO molecule modules. Starting with chemical reactions, introduce students to molecules, atoms, chemical notation, and chemical compounds starting with a hands-on wet lab and moving into models of the reactions. Allow students to concretely experience the photosynthesis reaction by building models of the reactants and products. Do your students know what air is made of? What percentage is oxygen? What happens chemically when things burn? Build a model of air and then combust fuel models to produce additional carbon dioxide and pollutants. Finally, understand oceans by modeling important chemical reactions happening in the ocean to emphasize ocean acidification and toxic mercury pollution. Each participating teacher will receive a classroom set of building bricks and lesson mats worth more than $350.
Audience: 4th-12th Grade Teachers
Location: Laboratory for Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona
Date and Time: June 11-13, 2019 - 8:00 am to 3:30 pm
Cost: Just $75 - you get breakfast & lunch everyday and ~$350 worth of STEM loot!
For novice and experienced school gardeners, join master educators at Manzo Elementary for three days exploring the possibilities for integration and engagement when you build a school garden program at your school. Take away new and exciting ideas about how to best cultivate the STEM minds of students using your space. Beyond STEM, learn how other educators are utilizing their garden spaces as living laboratories to integrate STEM into other subject areas. This strand will also focus on the rules about using produce in the classroom and for food service, building healthy soils, understanding nutritional content labels, saving seeds for a successful school garden, and much more! Walk away with $200 in equipment and supplies to jump start your school garden or expand what you are already doing!
Audience: PreK-8th Grade Teachers
Location: Manzo Elementary
Date and Time: June 18-20, 2019 - 8:00 am to 3:30 pm
Cost: Just $75 - you get breakfast & lunch everyday and ~$200 worth of STEM loot!
Inspired by the books The Wild Robot and The Wild Robot Escapes by Peter Brown, join our Robot Generals, Michael Griffith and Sherrie Dennis, for three days of getting to know the Edison robot platform and coding platforms (EdBlocks, EdScratch, and EdPy). Engineer solutions to Roz (Wild Robot) inspired challenges our Robot Generals have dreamed up. You will even get a chance to program Edisons to square dance! Starting with a simple bar code scan and progressing through drag-and-drop block Scratch programming, and ending with Python – a legitimate programming language used in the real world, teachers from a wide grade range will experience how they can engage their students with these powerful little robots. 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
Location: College of Education at the University of Arizona
Date and Time: June 18-20, 2019 - 8:00 am to 3:30 pm
Cost: Just $75 per person - you get breakfast & lunch everyday and ~$600 worth of STEM loot!
NOTE: Team of two required - you must apply for this strand with a colleague.
Using MIT DNA/RNA/protein/tRNA models, educators who teach the central dogma of molecular biology will now be able to use hands-on models to show how the molecules INTERACT, not just what molecules LOOK LIKE. Join us to build your own foundational knowledge and understanding, and to take your teaching to a new level! With the injection molded molecules, students can perform DNA replication, mRNA transcription, amino acid specificity with tRNAs, DNA mutation and repair, and more. With the protein and amino acid sets, students can perform translation and protein folding, learn about hydrophobic and hydrophilic interactions, demonstrate all four levels of protein structure, create models of enzymes, structural proteins, antibodies, and more. Spend three days with Dr. Amanda Mayer, a native Tucsonan who works at the MIT Edgerton Center, as she walks you through the range of firsthand experiences your students can have using these powerful models. Pending funding, 8th-12th grade educators who teach the central dogma of biology will walk away with a $2400 classroom set of the DNA/RNA/protein/tRNA models. We are still seeking sponsors for these classroom kits and will continue to fundraise after the institute is over if necessary. That said, registering for and taking this strand does not guarantee the participant a $2400 kit.
Audience: 8th Grade and High School Biology Teachers ONLY
Location: Laboratory for Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona
Date and Time: June 18-20, 2019 - 8:00 am to 3:30 pm
Cost: Just $75 - you get breakfast & lunch and (PENDING FUNDING) ~$2400 DNA/RNA/protein kit!
Are we unique and alone in the Universe? Explore the diversity of planets around other stars, learn about on-going and future projects aimed at discovering Earth twins, and experience how to turn your students into planet hunters! Believe it or not, humans are NOT at the center of the Universe. From the history of our shift from geocentric to a heliocentric view to building a scale model of our solar system and the Trappist 1 solar system to the variety of ways we detect exoplanets and finally, exploring the habitable (Goldilocks) zone to find Earth twins, this workshop will leave you excited to engage your students with this cutting edge science!
Audience: 4th-12th Grade Teachers
Location: Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona
Date and Time: Saturday, August 24, 2019 - 8:00 am to 3:30 pm
Cost: Just $25 - you get breakfast, lunch and ~$50 worth of STEM loot!
