Center for Science Teaching and Learning - Northern Arizona University

Interested in STEM education and looking to enhance your skills? Explore place-based approaches to data literacy, model-based inquiry, and/or Youth Engineering Solutions. Scholarships available for our data-rich program in the in the cool pines 🌲 of Flagstaff, AZ within minutes of the at the Center for STEM Teaching and Learning - Northern Arizona University. Details:

Summer STEM Education Opportunities in Flagstaff Data Fluency 3-day Professional Learning June 17-18, 2025 + 1 follow-up day in the fall*  This professional learning introduces place-based, data-rich strategies to support data fluency. Individuals with data fluency are confident and able to use and make sense of data, knowing when, how, and why ...

📢📢Registration is open for NESSP's National Student Challenge program!

This program offers students in grades 3–12 the opportunity to design their own NASA mission, encompassing
hands-on activities like:

-rocket building 🚀
-rover programming⚙️
-cultivating Moon plants 🌿

Mission Advisors receive training and a standard-aligned Companion Course, and qualified teams receive challenge supplies!

The deadline to register is January 25th, 2025.

Learn more at: https://nwessp.org/challenge/artemis-roads-iii/

📢 Exciting news! MAST alum and 2023 Arizona Teacher of the Year Robyn Yewell collaborated with CSTL’s Ron Gray to publish an article in Science & Children focused on teaching elementary students about Emperor Penguin adaptations 🐧 Read the article here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00368148.2024.2385944

🎉 Welcome to the 2024-2025 STICH Scholars! 🎉
This year we kicked off the semester with a boat-building challenge inspired by the bull boats used by the Lakota, Mandan Cherokee and Black Foot Tribes. In our second meeting, we brainstormed about how we define science communication. Stay tuned for updates on our students' projects and highlights from the STICH program!

🎉Congratulations to Dr. Christina Lee Baze (PI), Dr. Priyanka Parekh (Co-PI), Dr. Naomi Lee (Co-PI), and Dr. Alison Singer (Co-PI) on receiving a 4-year, $500,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) IUSE HSI grant! 🎉

This grant, titled 'Advancing STEM Students' Competence and Consciousness through Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Pedagogies,' takes an interdisciplinary approach to researching culturally responsive pedagogies and learning experiences across various STEM fields. This research is vital in creating learning environments that meet the diverse needs of our students and include their voices in STEM teaching and learning.

We look forward to this project’s impact on STEM education! 🌟

Last week, we concluded our 2024 PLANETS Partners Working Group! 🌟 A huge thank you to all our incredible partners who make PLANETS possible. We're grateful for everyone’s collaboration as we reflected on our progress and charted the course for the exciting journey ahead as we near our 10th year! 🚀



Our Partners: WestEd, NASA Science Activation, USGS Astrogeology, Museum of Science, Boston, Magnolia Consulting, LLC

Thank you Abigail Kessler from the Arizona Daily Sun for covering this new field course at the Historic Hat Ranch. To learn more about the kind of work going into place-based learning in the Colorado Plateau and the experiences of our students, check out this article!

Northern Arizona University students conduct environmental research in new summer program at Historic Hat Ranch The program is an four-week interdisciplinary camp that introduces students to a variety of environmental and social sciences, showing connections between different areas of study.

🎉 SCI 240: Hat Ranch Field Course has come to a wrap! 🎉
Over the past four weeks, our incredible students have deepened their understanding of land stewardship and the issues facing the Colorado Plateau through this immersive field course grounded in place-based learning. 🌿🌲

Our students not only conducted their own research projects around the ranch, but they also showcased the hands-on experience and profound understanding of place they've cultivated here.

A huge shoutout to everyone who made this possible: program coordinators, graduate assistants, the ranch manager, guest speakers, our amazing camp cooks, and of course the students themselves.

Thank you for your dedication and hard work! 🙌 This incredible group of students has set the bar high, and we can’t wait to offer this course again in the future to continue fostering field and research skills through place-based learning. 🚀

🌍✨ Thank You to Our Amazing Teachers and Partners! ✨🌍

A huge thank you to all the incredible teachers and partners who made our Place-Based Learning to Advance Connections, Education, and Stewardship (PLACES) event a resounding success! 🎉🍎

With WestEd's Making Sense of SCIENCE model and NASA Langley Research Center's data sets, we embarked on a journey to deepen data fluency through a place-based approach. Together, we explored innovative instructional strategies, tackled common student difficulties, and connected with our local landscapes and communities.

Special thanks to the students at Hat Ranch for guiding us around the ranch and teaching us about plant species and the issues of the Colorado Plateau. Connecting the data of pinion pine decline to the place and data collection methods has enriched our understanding of data.

This event would not have been possible without the generous support of Arizona Public Service - APS, Phoenix Suns Charities, and The Transformation Network. Your contributions ensured that teachers could attend and benefit from this transformative experience.

We can’t wait to see what the next PLACES seminar in August, hosted by the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, will bring!

STICH Scholar Spring Updates are here with Emily Godin starting us off!

As the year comes to a close, our STICH scholars are beginning to summarize their research experiences and findings in preparation for the Undergraduate Symposium in April. Our scholars have worked so hard this year and we are so proud of the work they have accomplished!
Keep a look out for more scholar updates throughout the month of March and we will see you at the Symposium in April 👀

This week, Anne Hamlin and Joelle LeMer held a working session in Orlando, Florida to test PLANETS curriculum with local Out-of-School Time educators (OST)!

PLANETS (Planetary Learning that Advances the Nexus of Engineering, Technology, and Science) is an OST program for educators and youth grades 3-8 that provides STEM learning with an emphasis on NASA planetary science and engineering, particularly for underserved audiences using principles of diversity, equity, access, and inclusion. Visit the PLANETS website to learn more about the program and access the educator resources:
https://planets-stem.org