TERC Tech Talks Video Podcast 

TERC, a STEM education research and development nonprofit, has launched TERC Tech Talks, a video podcast series designed to help educators, parents, and practitioners navigate the rapidly evolving world of AI tools and emerging learning technologies. Hosted by TERC researchers Ken Rafanan, Dr. Zac Alstad, and Elise Levin-Güracar, the series invites viewers to join them as they test drive AI tools live, unscripted, and in the context of real teaching and learning. Each episode highlights successes, challenges, and classroom strategies, then wraps up with the hosts’ top tips for considering these tools. TERC Tech Talks offers an informal, engaging way to explore these tools without a large time commitment. Episodes are now available on YouTube, with new content released biweekly.

AMNH Virtual Field Trips 

Can’t take your students on field trips outside of the classroom? Bring an experience to them with a virtual field trip from The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York. The AMNH offers virtual field trips for K–12 audiences, enabling students to virtually explore the Museum’s halls and their exhibits up close. Students can virtually visit the Butterfly Conservatory (grades K–2), Hall of North American Mammals (grades 3–5), Hall of Planet Earth (grades 6–8), and the Hall of Human Origins (grades 9–12). Each virtual field trip includes a Teacher’s Guide with information, activities, and extensions to support student learning.

For example, after viewing the Museum’s butterfly conservatory, primary students compare butterfly patterns and complete extension activities such as drawing the life cycle of a butterfly and creating a scientific illustration of a Monarch butterfly. Upper-elementary students explore habitat dioramas in the Hall of North American Mammals to learn how animals must be adapted to an environment to survive in it. Middle level students explore exhibits on plate tectonics, explosive volcanism, effusive volcanism, earthquakes and mountain building from the Museum’s Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth, then complete a cooperative jigsaw activity to communicate what they learned about “why the Earth has ocean basins, continents, and mountains.” High school students record similarities and differences among three skeletons exhibited in the Hall of Human Origins and compare skull images and examine various dioramas to explore evolutionary relationships among species.

Space Resources Collection

Engage learners of all levels from grades 3–12 in learning more about the night sky with this collection of teaching tools from National Geographic Education. The collection contains resources such as articles, videos, idea sets, and infographics. Each tool highlights the work of a National Geographic Explorer invested in the topic, such as cosmologist Cynthia Chiang, planetary researcher Munazza Alam, and filmmaker Sophie Dia Pegrum. 

Notable resources include The History of the Space Race (grades 4–12), an article that details humans’ journey to the Moon (versioned for two reading levels, grade 4 and grade 7); SIMOC, an interactive simulation (versioned for grades 5–8 and 9–12) in which students design a habitat to sustain human life on Mars by selecting various combinations of crew quarters, greenhouse, food and plants, energy generation and storage, and mission duration; and What’s That Space Rock?, an infographic for all ages that illustrates and classifies terms for celestial bodies and objects such as comets, comet nuclei, dwarf planets, asteroids, the asteroid belt, meteor showers, meteors, meteorites, meteoroids, and near-Earth objects.

Vernier Science Education Inspiration Grants

Vernier Science Education is accepting applications for its 2025 Inspiration Grants, designed to support K–12 and college educators in fostering STEM literacy with students. As part of the grant program, a total of 10 educators will each receive $1,000 worth of Vernier technology of their choice, an annual license for Vernier Graphical Analysis® Pro, and three hours of virtual professional development to further support their teaching. The grants are open to all K–12 and college educators who are actively teaching at an educational institution in the United States and who have not previously won a grant from Vernier. As part of the application process, educators must describe how they will implement the $1,000 worth of Vernier technology in their classroom or laboratory, their educational institution’s needs, and how the funding will enhance their instruction and engage students. Applications are due by November 30.

Virtual Summit: STEAM Education in the K–12 Classroom

Join the Innovation Collaborative—a national forum to foster creativity, innovation, and lifelong learning—on October 23 for its online event on STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) education. The event will feature distinguished keynote speakers (including NSTA Retiring President Alicia Conerly), conversations with veteran STEAM educators, and deep-dive breakout sessions in which attendees can dialogue with peers and experts on their professional development needs and experiences with STEAM in the classroom. Advance registration is required.

Baking Soda Rocket Day

Young Minds Inspired (YMI) invites teachers and students in grades 4–6 to celebrate Baking Soda Rocket Day on October 9 by having students launch baking soda rockets. Ready, Set, Experiment: STEAM Activities, YMI’s free teaching kit, includes a materials list, step-by-step instructions, and everything classrooms will need. These hands-on, easy-to-implement activities and experiments featuring the science of baking soda are designed to spark curiosity and make learning a blast.