Session II

Ethics & Energy: Teaching Science with AI

Explore the free Illinois Climate Education Hub, a database for K-12 science. We’ll showcase Gen AI’s Energy Use to help students analyze the environmental footprint and ethics of AI including student activities. Discover renewable energy resources and tools designed to build critical thinking and pedagogical innovation in the age of AI. Learn to use tech to empower, not replace, science inquiry.

Keeping Up With AI in the High School Classroom

This session explores the educator’s role in guiding student use of AI in grades 9-12. Participants will examine multiple AI platforms to understand how students are using them and how educators can productively leverage that use. Attendees will gain insight into current AI trends and learn strategies to shift the conversation toward meaningful, responsible classroom integration.

Sparking Curiosity: Cultivating Student-Driven Questions in Science

In this interactive session, teachers will experience the science practice of Asking Questions from the perspective of their students. Participants will engage in phenomena-based tasks that spark curiosity, generate investigable questions, and refine those questions through collaborative routines. By functioning as learners, teachers will develop a clearer understanding of how questioning supports sensemaking and drives investigations at different grade levels. Educators will leave with questioning structures, talk moves, and classroom-ready tools to empower students to lead their own learning.

Protect Your Eyes! Comparing Colors In Sunglasses 

Students collect evidence that indicates that different colors of light carry different amounts of energy. Through three-dimensional learning, students analyze and interpret light transmission graphs for three different sunglass lenses. They determine which sunglass lens (structure) provides the best protection (function) for the eyes. 

Skull Comparison Investigations on a Budget!

Download everything you need to guide students as they identify basic trends in hominid evolution from early ancestors six million years ago to modern humans, including brain size, jaw size, language, bipedalism, etc. Choose from a 2-skull short lesson or a full 7-skull investigation.

http://bit.ly/4sOmyFm 

https://bit.ly/4lWyIsR 

Join us to win your own set of skulls!

Stile’s Enhancing Engagement Toolkit: 20+ Strategies

Discover over 20 powerful strategies guaranteed to transform student collaboration, connection, and comprehension in the science classroom! Participate in lively, hands-on activities designed to immediately boost classroom interaction and deepen learning. Take home your own set of Stile Enhancing Engagement Toolkit cards, complete with QR code links to videos showing each strategy in action in real science classrooms.

Empowering Diverse Learners through LEGO® Education Science

Discover how LEGO® Education Science engages learners through hands-on investigations with multiple entry points and opportunities for deeper exploration. Explore inclusive strategies, UDL supports, and open-ended challenges that maintain rigor, honor student strengths and experiences, and empower all learners to think critically, collaborate, and solve authentic scientific problems.