I learned a lot at the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) conference, held in Denver from March 20-23. I wrote a little about it in my latest newsletter. In this blog post, I’ll talk about why I went, whether I fit in (spoiler, I did), what I learned about science education and my place in it, and whether I will go back.

Why I went and how I went

I went to the NSTA conference for the following reasons:

• I wanted to interact with science teachers
• I wanted to see if what Science is Elemental is doing/planning would be worthwhile to teachers and students
• I wanted to see if going to the conference would be helpful for fulfilling SIE’s mission.

You belong here

The tag line for the Denver conference was “You belong here”. I found that I did. I was worried that because I was not a classroom science teacher, I would not find many of the presentations useful. While it’s true that I was careful to select those that would be most relevant, I am not sure it would have mattered. I learned most from interacting with the teachers at the presentations, and understanding what they got out of them.

Science education is a huge enterprise

I met teachers, representatives from large businesses, representatives from government agencies, other nonprofit leaders, university professors and students, and just about anyone else that is associated with teaching science. I worried, before the conference, that Science is Elemental might not have a place in this huge enterprise that is science education. The NSTA conference taught me that science education needs all of us. There is plenty of room at the table.

I have something to contribute

To elaborate, the NSTA conference taught me that either a) some of the planned programs for SIE are unique, or b) other organizations doing similar things did not send representation to the conference. I suspect the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Not too many organizations are planning/doing the type of work SIE is/will be doing. And those that are might not have been there. Or, they were, and I just didn’t run across them. There were a lot of people there, and the Denver Convention Center is enormous. It also has a big blue bear peaking in. Check out the photo at the bottom of the post.

The important thing is, there is a lot of work to do for science education, and there is a place for SIE in that space.

I will go back

The next conference is in November, in New Orleans. Sadly, that’s not in the budget. However, when I do go to another NSTA conference, I hope to be a presenter–either in a talk or in a poster session. I’m looking forward to it.