Office of Educational Outreach

Struggling with teaching basic atomic structure, ions, physical/chemical changes or balancing equations? Come see how Science Cut Ups can engage and support your students in learning these concepts. Door prizes and lots of cuttin’ up!

Come participate in hands-on activities to help children recognize and understand examples of Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion in the world around them. Make and take learning activities with you to use with your students.

Hands-On workshop with the SmartScope hand-held digital microscope (computers and SmartScopes for each group). Discover the microscopic world all around us from insects, rocks, soil and the weave of our clothes to prepared slides focusing on cells and mitosis. All grade levels will find this relevant and exciting.

Do you know the 3 types of investigations required in the new TEKS? This hands-on session will help you learn the different characteristics of each.

Join us for an engaging, interactive session as we look at strategies for developing students’ language and literacy skills while supporting access to standards-based science content knowledge. Differentiated science readers will be provided for all session participants.

Learn how to easily incorporate fun and exciting inquiry activities into your classrooms using ScholAR’s new In-the-Bag Inquiry Activity series. These easy-to-perform demonstrations are designed to engage your students and then incorporate guided inquiry exercises so they can further explore and understand the concept.

Hands-On workshop with the Solus datalogger (computers and datalogger for each group). Built-in sensors make the Solus VERY easy to use. See and graph real-time changes in temperature and sound. Several experiments will be performed. All grade levels will find this relevant and exciting.

Come participate in hands-on activities to help children recognize and understand examples of Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion in the world around them. Make and take learning activities with you to use with your students.

Learn to integrate the latest technological tools to support STEM education. Utilize the latest touch screen graphical interface that is “easy to use” and appropriate for all grade levels for scientific and engineering investigations. Learn new techniques to explain science and engineering concepts through the lens and language of mathematics.

Investigate the power of the LEGO MINDSTORMS® Education (LME) NXT-G software as you explore how to combine a graphical-based programming language with LEGO Technic elements. Transition from the common palette to the complete palette to have a better understanding of loops, switches, and sensor blocks. Workshops for alternate programming languages are also available upon request.

Join us for an engaging, interactive session as we look at strategies for developing students’ language and literacy skills while supporting access to standards-based science content knowledge. Differentiated science readers will be provided for all session participants.

As a first year teacher, the PDAS Evaluation is looming in your future. Veteran teachers will share their experiences and knowledge in the use of the 5E model for lesson planning for that all important PDAS Observation! Success Guaranteed!

Learn how to easily incorporate fun and exciting inquiry activities into your classrooms using ScholAR’s new In-the-Bag Inquiry Activity series. These easy-to-perform demonstrations are designed to engage your students and then incorporate guided inquiry exercises so they can further explore and understand the concept.

Where do you scream the loudest on a rollercoaster? In this workshop you will use an electronic timing system to measure the speed of a marble as it moves up and down a rollercoaster and develop a hands-on understanding of the law of conservation of energy. Free CD. Doorprizes.

Discover how to bring simple and motorized machines to life in your classroom. Explore accompanying curriculum, resources, and add-ons that will allow any educator to employ this core building set across many content areas.

Integrating instruction and highly engaging multimedia science content with hands on inquiry-based activities enables students to make essential connections that lead to concept mastery. Join us as we explore using Edusmart Science, a TEKS aligned multimedia resource for grades 3-8, and inquiry-based activities to enhance instruction and maximize student comprehension.

Understanding action-reaction is more difficult than just understanding the action-reaction of a rocket engine, the common example we give to student. We will identify action and reaction forces to understand the complete nature of Newton’s Third law of motion and causes of the motion of objects. Come and engage in hands-on activities that you can use with your students to deepen their understanding of Newton’s 3rd Law.

Maximize learning through the use of your classroom walls to help students build, connect and retain content learning! We will construct a foldable to guide the discussion of the 6 uses for your classroom walls and the rules for making a poster. Come to see what others are doing in their rooms!

What is the Heliosphere and how does it protect the earth. In the first part of this workshop learn about the Sun and Solar Wind and what the Heliosphere does for us. Receive Activities and Ideas from GEMS and NASA.

CASTLE (Capacitor-Aided System for Teaching and Learning Electricity) is a high school electricity curriculum that leads students from initial naive ideas to an increasingly expert understanding of electrical phenomena. A sequence of self-guided (inquiry) experiments uses large capacitors and transient bulb lighting to help students confront their misconceptions and build intuitive explanatory models. This curriculum could be utilized in 5th grade for the electricity unit. During this workshop we will investigate the first two sections: 1) What is happening in the wires? 2) Where does the moving charge originate?

Learn how to build and program robots using LEGO bricks and a simple icon-based, drag-and-drop software. This session is specifically designed to make educators feel comfortable introducing a hands-on approach to science, math, technology, and literacy to young learners.

In an engaging activity, participants utilize bathymetric maps to plot major worldwide earthquakes, locate the Ring of Fire, and predict movement of seven major tectonic plates. Use this evidence to support Wegener’s hypothesis. The final product is a world map that internalizes Earth’s dynamic movements. Free CD. Doorprizes.

Labs now come in three flavors! Are your labs clearly identified? In this session take a look at some common 4th – 12th grade science labs to determine if they should start with an hypothesis or a question. Card sorts and manipulatives will be provided to help you and your students figure it out.

The Magnetosphere plays a large role in protecting the earth from space weather. What about the aurora’s? Learn about these with activities and information from NASA.

Using fish and an aquarium as a context, participants will engage in a problem solving scenario that models excellent strategies to integrate ELPS into lessons in an effort to enhance English Language Learners understanding of science and mathematics. Come get fishy with us!