2017 Conference Theme and Proposal – Life Discovery Conference

Theme

Data: Discover, Investigate, Inform

The study of organisms presents myriad forms, visualizations, and uses of data that stimulate new questions and engender new understanding of life on earth. The theme for the 4th Life Discovery – Doing Science Conference (LDC) challenges educators to create environments and opportunities for their learners to:

Discover Data – where can existing datasets be accessed; what can instructors and students do with them; how can we work with various types of data including numeric, geospatial, specimen, images and sounds; what classroom materials and resources are available and how can they be adapted?

Investigate Data – how do we scaffold student experiences to collect, analyze and interpret data (including existing data); can we help students to use new available technologies to “Go beyond the bar chart” to visualize data in innovative ways; how can relationships be tracked, at different temporal and geospatial scales, in order to unfold the stories of life on earth?

Inform with Data – how do we design activities so students learn to assess the type, quantity, and quality of data needed to support a decision; locate relevant data; gain experience with data tools and statistical skills; discern appropriate scales for decision-making; and effectively communicate data?

Proposals should:

align with the objectives of both the K12 Next Generation Science Standards and the Vision and Change for Undergraduate Biology Education with an emphasis on sharing effective approaches to building quantitative reasoning skills among students.
identify one or more relevant Pedagogical Track/s and curriculum topic/s.

We are especially interested in proposals that:

focus on bringing research data into the classroom, present classroom-ready data investigation tools, and that feature large datasets across space and time
address developmental needs of learners, and the socioeconomic and cultural relevance of data in biology

Session Formats and Conference Tracks

The conference accepts proposals for three formats, four curriculum topics and three pedagogical areas. Details are available at:

http://www.esa.org/ldc/tracks/

What are Education Share Fair Roundtables?

This is a unique part of the conference experience that has come to be appreciated by participants. This session is designed for educators to create or revise lesson plans or activities with a peer working group. Proposals can be submitted for ideas and lessons at any stage of development. You receive immediate feedback and suggestions from your peers in a friendly, constructive environment.

This allows you to develop new lessons or to work on modifying currently existing lessons to a new grade level, teaching style, or learning objective(s). Each lesson or idea will be presented by the author at a roundtable with up to 9 other participants. You will also be able to add participants to your network for future feedback.

Presenters spend about 15 minutes describing their lesson idea. Discussions will follow where participants are invited to provide feedback and ideas regarding the core concepts addressed, methodology, misconceptions, assessment or educational extensions.

Presenters are strongly encouraged to submit finished work in the LifeDiscoveryEd Digital Library.

While presentations focused on the theme are especially welcomed, presenters may submit ideas on any topic relevant to environmental or organismal biology.

What Participants Said

In the 2016 conference evaluation, of those who participated, 84% said the Education Share Fair was “Good” or “Excellent”.

It was my first time in a roundtable. I did not know what to expect, but at the end I really like it and got many ideas and generated discussion. ~ 2016 LDC participant

The roundtables were a great way to discuss a new teaching technique. We could spend more time on the aspects of the topic our group was most interested in. The presenters were well-prepared, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. ~2014 LDC participant.

Submit Your Teaching Idea to the LifeDiscoveryEd Digital Library!

All presenters are highly encouraged to submit their final products for formal publication in the digital library. Authors retain copyright. Presenters will choose to submit through one of the four portals of the LifeDiscoveryEd Digital Library (LDDL), managed by LDDL partner societies.