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From Seaborg Mathematics and Science Center:

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Registration is now open for the 2021 virtual Lake Superior Youth Symposium!  The symposium is open to all 8th-12th grade students and is scheduled for May 14.  All the information you need to know and to register can be found on the LSYS Website.  

This year's virtual conference will allow the flexibility for your students to pick and choose sessions of interest throughout the day, as your schedules allow.  Given the various daily schedules of the many participating schools, attendance for the entire day is not required.  You and your students can join us for only the parts that fit your schedule best.  The attached 'Sessions At A Glance' document will provide a first look at how your school's schedule might align with the session offerings.  We are also working hard to ensure that we'll have video archives of all sessions, which will allow for on-demand access to any of the sessions afterward.  

The registration is a flat $50 per teacher/school.  This fee opens attendance for any students/classes you hope to have participate.  Teachers will need to determine how best to coordinate, support, and monitor their students during the symposium, and your school administrator will also need to attest to providing a safe environment.  This being the first virtual LSYS in history, we know this may look very different for each participating school.  Below are four possible scenarios that may occur; we offer these simply as a visualization tool to help you begin to think about how your students might be able to participate.

Scenario #1 - You have a specific class of 28 students one hour of the day that you'd like to have participate in the symposium, but your other classes aren't the best fit.  The $50 registration fee opens up access to the links of all sessions throughout the day.  You coordinate a substitute teacher for yourself to cover your other classes and secure a room in your building where you and the 28 students can view the symposium sessions as a whole class for the whole day.  If you are a one-to-one school, students could watch sessions independently, or you could pre-select the best sessions as a class ahead of time and project the Zoom feed onto a screen for all to see.

Scenario #2 - You have an environmental club that meets at lunchtime.  The $50 registration fee opens up access for the 12 member club.  On the day of the event, you only have 5 students that are able to get permission from their other teachers to miss their classes, so you secure individual computers and headphones for each of the five.  These students are able to attend various sessions of interest to them individually, while seated in the back of your classroom or perhaps the media center for the bulk of the day.  

Scenario #3 - You have a few students that are interested from a couple of your classes throughout the day, but you don't think all 175 of your students would be a good fit. You offer to let them come to your classroom during your prep hour and/or lunch period to view the sessions happening closest to your available times.  The $50 registration fee opens up access for the interested students.  The students use a computer and headphones to attend a session of interest to them, or the students decide collectively on a session and you project it for everyone to see together.

Scenario #4 - You and a teacher colleague both have interested students and decided to partner up.  The $50 registration fee opens up access for your classes.  The day could be split by using the symposium as part of your instruction for several classes in the morning, and then perhaps your colleagues afternoon classes.  Or you could split your classes, allowing interested students to attend in one classroom, while the students who aren't interested participate in another activity in your colleague's room.

We are excited to be hosting the 2021 LSYS, and we hope this virtual symposium may result in more options for participation.  Our planning team is here to help and we are willing to discuss options that will help your students engage - Let's get creative!  Upon registration, we will send each registered teacher the full program of session descriptions and secure Zoom links that can be accessed on the day of the symposium.

Warm Regards,

Chris Standerford, Director

Central Upper Peninsula MiSTEM Region

Seaborg Mathematics and Science Center

Northern Michigan University

Phone: 906-227-2002

http://www.nmu.edu/seaborg/ 

Sessions at a Glance