Salish Kootenai College, in partnership with collaborators, has created a six-unit resource for educators to teach middle school students about the science of food related to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT). Each thematic unit includes hands-on activities to enhance students' understanding of food science and Montana's local food systems. The units cover topics such as the molecular science of food, the importance of seasonal availability, and the origins of food, considering geography and culture. Students explore their senses and how they influence food choices, engaging in tasting native plants. A unit titled "Food as Medicine" integrates indigenous knowledge and modern practices around health and healing. Finally, students create a seasonal menu featuring native plants, reinforcing their learning and encouraging practical application. This program aims to connect students to their cultural heritage and contemporary food practices, enriching their educational experience.
Data shapes modern life: from apps to news to decisions in health, business, and government, yet most students graduate without exposure to data science concepts. As Montana focuses on integrating data science skills into state standards, understanding what curriculum-agnostic data instruction looks like across all grade levels becomes essential. This session explores why data science is critical for all K-12 students, not just future data scientists, and demonstrates how it increases student engagement by connecting to real-world problems students care about. You'll see how data literacy develops from elementary through high school, discover what age-appropriate instruction looks like across grades and subjects, and explore ready-to-use activities that bring these concepts to life. Whether you teach math, science, social studies, or other subjects, you'll leave with grade-appropriate entry points and practical strategies for infusing data literacy into your classroom, preparing students to thrive as informed, critical thinkers in our data-driven world.
The College of Letters & Science at Montana State University is at the heart of innovation, discovery, and service. Imagine your students uncovering the biology of diseases, delving into the realm of astrophysics, digging up fossils as they explore geologic time, or advocating for ethics in science and technology. This session will highlight education and career opportunities in Science, Technology, and Mathematics through MSU's largest academic unit, the College of Letters & Science. Hear from a panel of experts, including College of Letters & Science academic department leaders and top faculty. Learn important information to help your students plan for their future.
Join us for a walkthrough of Code Girls United’s AI Academy, a free AI resource built for classrooms and afterschool programs. Designed to be practical and accessible, our AI Academy includes explainer videos, structured lessons, and hands-on activities that help middle and high school students develop AI literacy, critical thinking, and responsible technology use
The audience will be shown previous presentations, given the purpose of the project, and allowed to create their own presentations for a particular Montana Indigenous group. The topics will be summer versus winter hunting grounds, the distance determined between the two, and the finding of the midpoint of the journey using the Desmos geometry tool. Then the audience will determine the size of the cache pot needed to store the supplies of the tribe for a winter season. Both the midpoint determination and the size of the cache will use geometric tools and formulas. Students in the presentations presented their slides, which also included biological information, as the original project was a cross-curricular project.
This session focuses on providing teachers (5th - 12th) a lesson that can be used with any unit focused on graphing. This lesson focuses specifically on learning about the flag of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, but would be easily adaptable to any flag used by tribes located within Montana.
We are going back to the Moon and onward to Mars. One of the first things to do is to set up a plant-growing station. This introduction will highlight successes and challenges with growing vegetables in the classroom. Students get to eat what they have grown and take home what they have learned (in a practical way).
