A picture showing some of the swag from the National Association of Biology Teachers annual conference. It includes green, reusable bag , a pair of socks. A pen, two water bottles and two pins. It also shows the program for the conference and the name badge of the original poster.

That’s a wrap on #NABT24. I’ve attended many professional conferences but this was my first time here. I feel they could do more for nonformal educators. Most other orgs have already stepped up. I’m hopeful they will do more moving forward. However, numerous high quality presentations.

#EduSky

An example of the resource created in the workshop session. It shows a branching phylogenetic tree, with each branch made from a different color pipe cleaner. In addition, there are pony beads attached to each pipe cleaner to represent which traits that organism would have. There is a pink pipe cleaner with a yellow bead; a purple pipe cleaner with a yellow and red bead; a green pipe cleaner with a yellow, red and green bead; a blue pipe cleaner with a yellow, red, green and blue bead; and an orange pipe cleaner with a yellow, red, green, blue and pink bead.

Another #NABT24 session that provides cool and easy ideas I can implement in my workshops. This time: using pony beads and pipe cleaners to deal with student misconceptions regarding phylogenetic trees.

#EduSky

Presentation Slide. Side Quests make the storyline customizable Then it shows two flow charts, one going to the right and one going to the left. Both start with an anchor icon (to indicate an anchor phenomenon as the first activity) followed by 3 magnifying lenses to indicate regular investigations and then a puzzle icon to show the culminating activity or assessment.

One more solid #NABT24 session from @ncse.bsky.social. This time I learned about their Story Shorts. I’m so glad to see people addressing the challenges of long-form #ngss storylines. I definitely want to explore more and see if we can make our own focused on AZ wildlife!

#EduSky

#NABT24 delivers another good session: we explored evolution of ratites, an unusual and challenging group of flightless (sort of) birds. Activity involved the hypothesis testing and phylogenetic trees. Already thinking of more ideas for my #teacherPD.

And we ended with this fun video!

#EduSky

The cover slide to a presentation titled A Lioness Walks Into An Orca: How Stories Enhance Science Education 2024 NATIONAL ASSOCIATION of BIOLOGY TEACHERS conference National Center for Science Education • Evolution Symposium • Anaheim CA Katie Hinde, PhD Associate Professor School of Human Evolution & Social Change Center for Evolution & Medicine Arizona State University @mammalssuck.bsky.social

A graphic showing the basic story arc Exposition - Background information of the plot that includes characters and setting Initial Incident - The very first conflict that occurs in the plot Rising Action Three major events that add suspense or tension to the plot that lead to the climax. Climax - The most suspenseful part of the plot. The turning point for the protagonist. Falling Action - Events the unravel the conflict between the protagonist and antagonist that lead to the resolution. Resolution - The conflict is resolved and we discover whether the protagonist achieves there goal or not. Denouement - The "tying up of loose ends". • Story arc vs. Character arc • Hero's Journey • 3-Act Structure • Circular Arc • Vonnegut's Taxonomy of Stories

A stylized graphic showing the logo for the 2025 March Mammal Madness. The letters are all different colors and various animals help form the shapes of the words. The tagline: “If you’re learning, you’re winning.”

Another great #NABT24 session hosted by @ncse.bsky.social and @mammalssuck.bsky.social

Biggest take away: Human mind is adapted to learn from stories not lists of facts. Need to incorporate the story arc into some of my #teacherPD.

Can’t wait for March Mammal Madness #MMM

A selfie of original poster along with Alex Troutman.

A slide with a blue background with white text that reads: It shows that you care about them, as well as their success. While showing your peers what you represent and what you will or will not tolerate.

Great keynote this morning @ #NABT24 focused on why representation matters from Alex Troutman, a wildlife biologist. Awesome advice: Don’t offer a seat at the table because it was built on oppression. Instead, bring the community together, ask what they want, and build a new table.

#EduSky

A graphic shown in NBC channel 2 in Fort Myers, Florida on August 2016 that is an example of a bad graph. It shows the results of a poll they ran where viewers answered the question, “How concerned are you about the Zika virus?” The data is represented in a bar graph with 4 categories: very concerned, somewhat concerned, not very concerned, and not at all. The bars don’t accurately represent the data. For example, the order of the categories based on % of responses was: very concerned (34%), somewhat (28%), not very (25%), and not at all (13%). However, the largest to smallest bar sizes are: not at all, try, not very and somewhat.

First session @ #NABT24 was awesome! @ncse.bsky.social did a great job presenting their DataWISE tool (ncse.ngo/datawise) to help with data literacy and understanding misinformation.

Plus, we got to look at crazy graphs like this. When the spreadsheet does you wrong!

#stemeducation #EduSky

The image background is a purplish sunset showing the tops of some palm trees. In the foreground is the organization name NABT National Association of Biology Teachers as well as their stylized DNA logo.

Anyone else getting ready for the #NABT24 annual conference? Can’t wait to meet up with other #biologyteachers to share ideas for improving #stemeducation. Let’s do this!

#stem #nabt #EduSky