AST 2016 – Nova Scotia goes with PASCO!

AYVA was proud to participate in the annual Nova Scotia Association of Science Teachers science conference (AST) again this year. The conference offered a broad range of sessions pertaining to the many disciplines of K-12 science. This is a particularly exciting year for science students in Nova Scotia since the Department of Education & Early Childhood Development provided nearly 300 local elementary schools with SPARKvue software and PASCO sensors for hands-on, inquiry-based learning.

Three PASCO workshops were offered over the course of the conference, enabling teachers to become acquainted with their new datalogging technology which pairs seamlessly with the Chromebooks and iPads. Probeware allows students to collect, manipulate and analyze data from various sources to support observations and help make inferences and conclusions about the world around them. Participants were able to observe how true open-ended inquiry becomes much easier when real world data is collected in a timely fashion. Teachers had a chance to demo the new line of wireless sensors and were given several streamlined curriculum activities to take back to their classrooms. Many instructors stopped at the AYVA booth to ask about the new equipment and to talk about the new materials that were sent out to grades 4-6 this year. Our special thanks go to all the attending teachers and our amazing team of presenters: Wes Leblanc (Chemistry Teacher, HRSB), Mark Richards (Consultant of Technology Integration-AVRSB) and Nancy Chisholm (IT Consultant).