National Education Summit 2022

Most students’ experiences of alien worlds are through movies, but they can now detect and explore real exoplanets for themselves using online telescopes and analysis tools. Find out how DIY Planet Search, an online lab developed by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, engages high school students in real scientific research.

Join Smithsonian educators and a classroom teacher as we introduce portraits, strategies, and lessons for teaching about the history of women in the United States, with a focus on drawing connections to the present. We seek to empower educators and students by introducing them to new ideas for integrating art, and civics that center on stories of women. Participants will receive classroom resources!

Learn how public art can be used to explore memorialization, storytelling, and protest. We’ll explore ways you can provide your students with the interdisciplinary, artistic tools to access their power and amplify their voices through public art. Following this session, you’ll have access to classroom-ready lessons on the topic.

Your class is on a hike when suddenly a thunderstorm develops. What can you do to make sure your class stays safe no matter what the weather? Join Smithsonian educators, who will explore phenomenon and problem-driven challenges like this one embedded within early childhood science lessons.

This session showcases an integrated unit designed by participant teachers featuring PocketLab experiments and a Smithsonian Learning Lab collection, within a research-based framework for student-led inquiry learning called Guided Inquiry Design®.

Join Smithsonian Asian American educators to learn about the historical roots of stereotypes affecting Asian Pacific Americans (APA) in the United States. You’ll hear from educators about how stereotypes affect different APA communities and what you can do to address stereotyping in your school communities today.

Whether it is through classroom projects, student advocacy, or day-to-day assignments, thinking about how to turn the learning over to our students is always a purposeful endeavor. Join this panel of State Teachers of the Year who will share how they empower their students and build efficacy around student voice.

Believe everything you hear? Of source not! Learn how former Smithsonian Libraries fellow and history teacher used Smithsonian primary sources to examine California’s racial history. Next, Smithsonian Archives will teach you how to dissect the underutilized primary source of oral histories, straight from the source's mouth.

In this session, learn how to use design and the design process to help students make change for the better in their communities and beyond with the Smithsonian Learning Lab and Cooper Hewitt's suite of National High School Design Competition materials.

Join National Museum of Natural History educators and scientists to discover how the history of objects can be unpacked using inquiry-based thinking routines. We’ll explore techniques anthropologists use to interrogate cultural objects while thinking about materials, makers, and processes, which can be transferred to any classroom to inspire deep engagement.

Smithsonian staff will co-present with high school teachers from the Chesapeake Math and IT Academy to describe their collaboration to empower teens to lead environmental action projects at their school.

Participating educators will examine pieces created by and for the postal service, using postage stamps and post office murals as an entry point into the complex topic of cultural representation in art.

A sense of place can elicit powerful lessons for our students. Connecting to the land around them helps build both purpose in learning and pride in the influence of place. Join this panel of State Teachers of the Year who will share how they incorporate the land into their lessons and how this impacts student growth.

At the heart of the hands-on, project-based learning experiences that Spark!Lab team designs, develops, and facilitates in the museum space is the importance of invention and innovation. Learn how they've adapted these experiences for classroom and at-home learning using digital tools and how you can build out similar experiences for your students.

How can examining and discussing art support social-emotional learning skills? Alongside educators from the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Museum of Asian Art, you'll practice incorporating mindfulness, slow looking, and writing activities with art. Continue the learning with digital tools to implement with your learners.

In this special edition of the Smithsonian Learning Lab Office Hours series, join us and guest educators for targeted help on using the Lab (learninglab.si.edu) to translate Education Summit ideas to your classroom. We’ll introduce the Lab, share student-tested techniques, and answer your questions.

Press pause on the conference conversations and play online games exploring the work of three innovative Smithsonian scientists. After this session, you’ll be ready to take your students on an underwater adventure, journey through the jungles of Panama, and travel lightyears into outer space.

The Smithsonian joins other federal agencies and two K-12 STEAM educators to share examples of “convergence education.” Driven by complex real-world transdisciplinary problems and phenomena--ranging from climate change to biodiversity--learners apply knowledge and skills in a blended approach integrated across multiple disciplines to create and innovate new solutions.

In this session, participants will engage in object-based learning strategies to support conversations about our racial past and consider the relevance of Reconstruction today. Facilitators will guide participants to reflect and discuss this topic as a group using close looking, analysis, and synthesis routines.

Resources from the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, and other cultural institutions can be engaging teaching tools—but paired together, they can be magical! This session will highlight four projects from across the country that have been combining collections in their work with educators and experiencing transformative results.

A solid foundation in early childhood is critical to later success. Join a panel of national leaders for a discussion of how equitable access to quality early learning experiences impacts students, schools, and learning across the country and the educational spectrum.

The Anacostia Community Museum (ACM) and Capital Experience Lab (CapX) joined forces to create student projects using guerrilla education techniques. They will share tips, tricks, and tools to turn any street corner into a museum experience.

What if there were no limits to your ability to learn? Would you navigate the fiery aftermath of a massive star explosion? Or dive deep below the surface of the ocean to discover hidden sea life? Or hunt (or be hunted!) in a thick tropical jungle? The Smithsonian has three new online games available for students of all ages!

This video provides a brief introduction and tutorial to begin using the Smithsonian Learning Lab platform to discover digital museum resources, create and adapt interactive learning experiences, and share discoveries and creations with others. It complements interactive sessions held by other educators during the summit.

Learn about the wealth of free resources available from the Smithsonian American Art Museum to help you teach your curriculum using art, including teacher guides, artist videos, and live virtual field trips/videoconferences.

This video will provide a brief introduction to the free poster exhibitions and related educational resources from the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service. It includes a “sneak peek” of some upcoming projects.

In this sneak peek session, staff from Smithsonian Libraries and Archives and Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Culture Heritage will introduce MusicHerStory: Women and Music of Social Change, a new exhibition that explores the rich contributions of American women across a wide range of musical roles and genres.

Smithsonian Affiliations has gathered a number of video assets featuring students in their own voices talking about environmental issues that concern them, and what they are doing about these issues in their communities.

This video shares student and teacher testimonials from our previous year’s “Democracy: A National Youth Summit Civic Education Series” program on Gender Equity to inspire participation.