On Feb. 18, NASA will attempt to land a new rover on the surface of Mars. We invite students of all ages, educators, and parents to participate in the adventure of this historic landing. NASA has created a STEM Education Toolkit with links to the “Mission to Mars Student Challenge” to lead students in designing their own Mars mission, plus activities, lessons, interactives, social media and more to allow classrooms, families, and individuals to ride along. In addition, there will be a series of programs broadcast for educators and students in the days and weeks leading up to landing. As always, we welcome this opportunity to include diverse learners in the NASA family.

Here are some of the particulars:

• Named Perseverance and carrying a helicopter named Ingenuity, this car-sized rover is designed to search for signs of ancient microbial life and collect samples of Mars for return to Earth.
• Landing events will be broadcast live on February 18 starting at about 11:00 AM PST/2:00 PM EST in English and Spanish with touchdown at about 12:55 PM PST/3:55 PM EST.  Watch live.
• Your one-stop shop for extensive Perseverance education and public engagement materials and resources is the #CountdownToMars Mars 2020 STEM Toolkit.
• Learn all about the “Mission to Mars Student Challenge” launching in January. The challenge culminates on Feb. 18, when students can land their missions along with the Perseverance Mars rover! Participants will also have the opportunity to join live stream Q&As with NASA experts and submit student work and questions for the landing day broadcast.
• Find the schedule for televised educational events in advance of landing day at the Challenge and Toolkit sites and at Mars Watch Online.
• Would you like a preview? Perseverance will be following much the same path as the Curiosity rover did in 2012. Watch Curiosity’s “Seven Minutes of Terror!” video.

This is a historic opportunity to engage all students and inspire them to consider STEM careers. Please share this widely with your colleagues, students, and families and via networks, social media (#CountdownToMars) and newsletters.

Our own Stephanie Harmon is featured in The Concord Consortium blog! Stephanie talks about what's working in the classroom during COVID learning restrictions.

Click here to see the blog post.

Applications are now open for middle school science teachers from across the nation to apply to participate in the National STEM Scholar Program, a unique professional development program that provides advanced training for the middle school teachers of aspiring scientists nationwide. 10 middle school science teachers will be selected for the 2021 Class of National STEM Scholars.

Created in partnership between the National Stem Cell Foundation and The Gatton Academy of Mathematics and Science at Western Kentucky University (WKU), the National STEM Scholar Program selects 10 teachers annually from a national pool of applicants to participate in a week of advanced science training and network building on the campus of WKU in Bowling Green, KY. In addition to training, STEM Scholars receive a generous stipend to develop individual Challenge Projects for classroom implementation and spend a day with a nationally or internationally known STEM speaker, receive all-expense paid registration for participation in the National NSTA Conference, and participate in ongoing networking with other STEM Scholars nationwide.

More specific information may be found by following this link.

Stephen Richter, PhD, Director of the Division of Natural Areas and Professor of Biology at Eastern Kentucky University, is offering the class in Fall 2020, Tuesdays 6:00-8:45pm, with some weeks online to accommodate in-service teachers. This experiential course will provide teachers with content knowledge and activities they can use in their classroom.  

Although the course is aimed at middle school science, all concepts and activities will scale K–12 (and even college). In addition to basic ecology, content includes climate change, human population biology and social aspects of the environment, sustainability. In essence, Dr. Richter will teach ecology and the environment through an interdisciplinary approach beginning with the physical environment progressing to whole ecosystems and onto analyses of environmental issues.

View the syllabus from last fall.

Questions about prerequisites, content, or schedule, please contact:
Stephen Richter, PhD
Director, Division of Natural Areas
Professor of Biology
Eastern Kentucky University
Stephen.Richter@eku.edu
859-622-688

KSTA President Stephanie Harmon (Rockcastle County High School, PIMSER Regional Teacher Partner, and EKU College of Science adjunct faculty)authored an article featured in The Concord Consortium's winter @Concord special earth science edition: Can We Feed a Growing Population?  Using Simulations to Engage Students. Read how she helps her students understand what's happening with phenomena they can't see for themselves.

What Does It Really Take to Get High School Students to Make Their Ideas Visible?
by Angie Berk, Jen MacColl, and Kristen Moorhead

Asking high school students to reveal what they really think about what causes a natural or designed phenomenon is risky business. Risky in that it requires students to take the intellectual and social risk of sharing their thinking, which may or may not be correct. We thought all we needed to do was to ask them to share their thinking. But we discovered it takes intentionally listening to who really is or isn’t talking and teacher moves to shift the culture from some students sharing ideas some times to all students revealing their thinking. We’d like to share two stories about what it really takes. Read the full article

The Science Instructional Resources Alignment Rubric has been revised to reflect instructional shifts demanded by the Kentucky Academic Standards for Science. Reviewers will look for evidence of phenomena/problems driving lessons, the integration of the three dimensions and coherence across lessons, units and program.

To sign up for the Standards Newsletter, please visit KYstandards.org and enter your information at the bottom of the homepage.

Please view this flyer for information regarding free educational field trips to the Raven Run Nature Sanctuary, as well as our transportation grant sponsored by the Friends of Raven Run for schools within Fayette County. We are located about 30 minutes from downtown Lexington and offer a wide range of educational programs for all ages. We can also assist with providing hands-on, outdoor volunteer opportunities for your students and extracurricular groups.

Call or email us with any questions or to schedule your field trip for spring!

Jennifer Hubbard-Sánchez, MS, MA
Recreation Manager, Raven Run
Parks & Recreation
859.272.6105 office
859.455.6428 cell
lexingtonky.gov
jsanchez@lexingtonky.gov

KSTA co-hosted the NSTA Cincinnati Area Conference in November 2019.  270 Kentuckians attended the conference. Several Kentucky teachers and KY university and college faculty presented sessions. Many of the KY participants visited the KSTA Booth to talk, purchase/renew their KSTA membership, buy a KSTA t-shirt or share a bit about their conference experience. Several special guests also spent time with us including Dr. Stephen Pruitt, President, SREB; Jacquey Barber, Associate Director for Design & Development, Lawrence Hall Science; Rae McEntyre, Science Consultant, KDE and Dr. Tom Tretter, Science Education Co-Director of the Center for Research in Mathematics and Science Teacher Development, University of Louisville.

Remember to join us November 5 – 7, 2020 for the Annual KSTA Conference.  The Kentucky Academy of Science is joining us for the 2020 conference event to be held on the campus of Eastern Kentucky University. Save the date and be part of this years’ experience.

A new science digital professional learning opportunity is now available! You can view the 'Literacy’ vs. ‘literacy’ What’s the Difference? video which provides guidance from the KDE science consultant Rae McEntyre. The accompanying PowerPoint slides include links to graphic organizers that can be used by a professional learning community to begin discussions in identifying and being more intentional in embedding literacy practices in science instruction.

These materials can also be found on the Science Professional Learning Modules webpage on KYstandards.org.