March 26, 2025

In this Issue:

• Deadline Reminder: Session Proposals for NABT2025 Due April 1st
• Volunteer to Review NABT Conference Proposals
• Deadline Reminder: NABT CESR Virtual Poster Competition Submissions Due April 14th
• Partner Spotlight: Improve Your Assessment Items —Contribute to HHMI BioInteractive’s Assessment Builder!
• NCSE Launches New Podcast to Help Safeguard Sound Science

Deadline Reminder: Session Proposals for NABT2025 Due April 1st

Time is running out to submit a session for the 2025 NABT Professional Development Conference in St. Louis. The NABT Conference is your opportunity to share innovative teaching strategies, informative research, and best practices with other biology and life science educators.

The NABT Conference also offers you much-needed time to recharge and reconnect with a community that understands and supports you as a science education professional.

NABT is accepting session proposals for the online until Tuesday, April 1, 2025.

Full submission guidelines are available to help you prepare materials before submitting your session online at 2025 NABT Conference Proposals.

Do you need session ideas? Check out our "real" series from NABT's President, Kirstin Milks, on our social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, and Bluesky).

Other Details:

• You may submit an unlimited number of proposals. However, acceptance will be limited to two education sessions per presenter.
• You may also present posters, research papers, exhibitor sessions, and symposiums in addition to the two sessions.
• The NABT Professional Development Committee will review session proposals, and acceptance notifications will be sent to presenters by May 30, 2025.
• Upon acceptance, all session presenters must register and pay the appropriate fees to attend the NABT Professional Development Conference in St. Louis.
• Please make sure all co-presenters are aware of this requirement before submission.
• NABT will accept sessions until 11:59 PM Pacific on Tuesday, April 1, 2025. 

Join us from October 30 to November 2, 2025, at the beautiful St. Louis Union Station Hotel in St. Louis, Missouri, for the only conference designed for biology and life science educators by biology and life science educators.

We look forward to receiving your proposals and welcoming you to the 2025 NABT Conference in St. Louis!

Volunteer to Review

NABT Conference Proposals

Every year, members of the NABT Professional Development Committee provide an invaluable service to our community by evaluating proposals for the NABT Professional Development Conference. These biology and life science education experts ensure the NABT Conference offers professional learning that is relevant, creative, and of the highest quality.

As we start planning for the 2025 NABT Professional Development Conference, we're seeking biology teachers like you to join us as proposal reviewers.

To be accepted as an NABT Proposal Reviewer, you must:

1. Be a member of NABT.
2. Have attended an NABT Conference in the last 5 years or have prior experience presenting/reviewing proposals for other science education organizations.
3. Be willing to review between 75-100 proposals, online and asynchronously, from April 1 through May 12, 2025. Each proposal should take 15-20 minutes to review.

As a small token of our appreciation, reviewers will receive a free registration to the 2025 NABT Conference in St. Louis.

Are you ready to impact the future of biology and life science education? Contact us at conference@nabt.org to learn more about the application process.

Deadline Reminder: NABT CESR Virtual Poster Competition Submissions Due April 14th

Teams of students and educators are invited to enter 4th Annual NABT Course-Embedded Student Research (CESR) Virtual Poster Competition. Designed to encourage and celebrate student research, this competition is open to all students engaged in CESR at high schools, two-year, and four-year institutions.

This is an excellent opportunity for students to gain valuable experience presenting their research, and the criteria are below: 

• Posters should effectively present a student-driven scientific research activity in any area of biological sciences. 
• Submissions must include a video of the poster presentation with a faculty/teacher mentor. The mentor must be an NABT member who is also listed as an author/presenter.
• The faculty/teacher mentor will introduce the course-embedded research topic, and the student(s) will then present their work on that topic. 
• Students and mentors are strongly encouraged to use the #betterposter format and review the guidelines and scoring rubric that will be released upon acceptance of the abstract.

Students who place 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in the CESR Competition will be awarded cash prizes of $200, $100, and $50, respectively. Please note: The prize will be split among all student presenters of a winning poster. The instructors will receive a complimentary year of membership to NABT.

You can learn more and view videos from previous winners at https://nabt.org/Events-CESR-Poster-Competition.

Poster Abstracts must be submitted online at CESR Poster Session by Monday, April 14, 2025. Accepted presenters must then submit their completed presentations by Friday, June 6, 2025, to enter the competition.

Improve Your Assessment Items — And Contribute to HHMI BioInteractive’s

Assessment Builder!

Are you looking to write more effective assessment items for your students? Enroll in Improving and Blooming Up Assessment Items, a short online course that provides evidence-based best practices for improving assessment items. Whether you are a beginner or looking to refine your skills, this course will help you improve your alignment of items to learning objectives and Bloom up existing items to assess higher-order cognitive skills. 

What You Will Gain from This Course:

• Enhanced Assessment Knowledge: Strengthen your expertise by learning new ways to write assessment items effectively. 

• High-Quality Assessment Items: Revise one to three assessment items you can use immediately.

• A Course Badge: Share evidence of your professional growth with your networks using your digital badge.  

By enrolling, you will equip yourself with tools that enhance your teaching and empower your students. Use your assessment items to enrich discussion and spark meaningful conversations in your classroom, develop assessments and activities, or identify common challenges where students need support. 

Grab One or More of Your Assessment Items and Get Started Today!

Format: Asynchronous Online

Time Commitment: 3–4 hours

Sign Up Here: Improving and Blooming Up Assessment Items 

Contribute to a Growing Assessment Hub!

Submit your revised item(s) to BioInteractive’s Assessment Builder, a growing repository of peer-reviewed assessment items from life science educators like you. Earn up to $50 for each accepted item.

Join the community of educators making a difference in their assessment practices!

Call for Proposal for the 17th Annual

NABT Biology Education Research Symposium 

We invite you to submit a proposal to present your research in biology education at the 17th Annual Biology Education Research Symposium. Previous presentations have included case study research on teaching evolution, action research in a high school setting, and modeling in elementary students.

This is a refereed session to be presented at the 2025 NABT Professional Development Conference on October 31, 2025, in St. Louis.

All papers will go through double-blind review and the format of the symposium will be a traditional presentation of papers by individuals or co-authors lasting 15 minutes each (with five minutes for Q&A). Reviewed proposals will be published as proceedings on the NABT website.

Papers are due Monday, June 30, 2025. Learn more at the 2025 Call for Papers.

NCSE Launches New Podcast to Help

Safeguard Sound Science

NCSE is pleased to announce its new podcast, Safeguarding Sound Science. The podcast combats misinformation, disinformation, and misconceptions about climate change with actual science.

In the 7-episode Season One: Climate Change Edition, Mat Kaplan (former host of Planetary Radio) talks to scientists, teachers, and other experts to explore who's behind some of the more insidious efforts to sow distrust in climate science, how those efforts filter down to schools and classrooms, and what is being done to ensure that everyone — especially students — is exposed to accurate climate science.

Episodes drop on Wednesday mornings, and three episodes are available for your listening pleasure at https://ncse.ngo/safeguarding-sound-science. Future episodes will feature J. Marshall Shepherd, renowned meteorologist and atmospheric scientist, Edward Maibach of the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, Bernadette Woods Placky of Climate Central, Bertha Vazquez, director of the Teacher Institute for Evolutionary Science (TIES) program, and our own Amanda L. Townley.