A Conference for COOL Teachers!

The virtual ScIC 8 Conference is officially a wrap, and what an event it was! Thousands of educators tuned in from all across the globe - New Zealand, Uruguay, Canada, and so much more, to get inspired and learn how to bring a passion for STEM education to their classrooms. It was an amazing community building event, kicked off by an opening address from my good friend - the one and only Dr. Sian Proctor. She highlighted her incredible journey going from educator to the first Black Female to ever pilot a space craft on last year's Inspiration 4 mission!

It was definitely a hard act to follow, but yours truly participated as well with a session aimed at sparking some excitement in STEM through the use of social media. It was such a pleasure being able to tell my story of going from Civil Engineer to Entertainer turned Science Communicator, and how I've leveraged curiosity to navigate some incredible things in STEM. We discussed everything from incorporating the Arts in STEM (STEAM) to how to make social media work for you and your students. I loved hearing the diverse range of problems that teachers all across the world have been experiencing, and even more pleased to be able to provide some solutions to some incredible challenges. How do we make science more relatable for students? How do we address issues of race & diversity in our classroom? What are some creative ways we can engage students to get them more excited about STEM education?

A big thank you to the PocketLab team for inviting me to be a part of this amazing event, and an even bigger thank you to all the educators out there that took initiative to improve their teaching skills by participating. I'm so excited to follow up with some of them that reached out personally to collaborate on some interesting STEM outreach with their schools or organizations!