Polar STEAM Summit Agenda

Welcome to the Summit! Stop by the Check in table to make it official.

This dinner event is for researchers, educators, and artists who are currently participating or have participated in the Polar STEAM program as Fellows.

Welcome to the Summit! If you didn’t check in on Thursday evening, this is your time to stop by the check in table.

Grab your coffee and tea, have conversations, and get ready for the day!

Welcome to the Summit!

The OSU Story Lab pairs student storytellers with researchers to capture narratives about research impact. David Baker, OSU Story Lab’s Creative Director, and student producer, Will Delaney, embarked on a Polar STEAM documentary project to share the stories of four Polar STEAM Fellows. Through the voices of a researchers, educators and artists, we’ll follow how the
blending of their experiences and backgrounds have shaped their understanding of their respective disciplines. From wide-eyed newcomers to the polar landscapes to seasoned researchers, we’ll explore a range of perspectives that shape polar exploration and understanding.

Following the showing of the short film, David will host a panel with student filmmaker Will Delaney and Fellows Brittney Stoneburg (Western Science Center/California State University, Fullerton), Eric Sanders (Sci-Port Discovery Center), and Jesse Cusack (Oregon State University) to delve deeper into their Polar STEAM and documentary film experiences.

Please choose 1 of the below sessions to attend.

• Session 1: From Field Notes to Social Posts: Using Social Media to Amplify your Scienc

Lisa Winters (Oregon State Univeristy, CEOAS)

Researchers are increasingly expected to communicate their work beyond academic audiences, yet many aren’t sure where to start. In this interactive session, participants will gain confidence in sharing their science on social media – without spending hours online. We’ll explore platform-specific best practices, create content together, and learn how to navigate the algorithm. We’ll also touch on digital accessibility and tools you can use to engage in social media with confidence. Leave with tools and inspiration for making your next post!

• Session 2: Illustrated Graphs: Science Storytelling with Watercolor

Jenny Hartigan (Alameda Unified School District)

Art can open the heart for engaging in conversations about climate change and environmental issues. Find the data hidden in beautiful artwork by artist Jill Pelto and use a lesson co-designed by Science Friday to create your own visual story. Hear how a middle school teacher used this lesson to engage her students in climate storytelling and advocacy.

• Session 3: Mentoring in the Field: Strategies to Foster Independence and Self-Efficacy

Blair Schneider (University of Kansas)

The Mentoring in the Field sessions were developed at the Kansas Geological Survey as a part of the NSF-funded Building Emerging STEM Scholars of Tomorrow program. These sessions focus on building best practices for mentors specifically in field-based settings. This session will focus on strategies that mentors can use to help foster independence and self-efficacy for their mentees in field-based settings by working through guided activities to explore and practice your skills.

• Session 4: Seeing Like a Researcher, Seeing Like an Artist: How Observation Changes Across Disciplines

Tom Turner (Anchorage School District)

Observation is central to both artistic practice and scientific inquiry, though each discipline approaches it with different methods and goals. This interactive session explores how artists and scientists observe the world, where their approaches overlap, and how interdisciplinary observation can strengthen research, creativity, and learning. Through guided exercises, visual analysis, and collaborative discussion, participants will practice strategies such as slow looking, pattern recognition, and sensory awareness. The workshop provides adaptable observational tools that can be applied in classrooms, fieldwork, and STEAM learning environments.

• Session 5: What Makes an Art–Science Collaboration Transformative?

Facilitated by: Carly Solstrom (Director of Arts, Science, Humanities, and Technology Integration, OSU)

Panelists: April Waters (Artist), Jason Dobkowski (University of Michigan), Jenny Hutchings (Oregon State University), Rebecca Adorno Davila (Artist), Tricia Thibodeau (University of New England)

Art–science collaborations often produce much more than an artwork, exhibition or research project. Through conversation and reflection, this panel explores what makes these partnerships transformative, inviting artists and scientists to share how collaboration reshaped their work, challenged their assumptions, and opened new ways of seeing the world.

Connect with researchers, educators, artists, communicators, and polar enthusiasts during this networking lunch. Participants that sign up will be matched based on shared interests and collaboration goals, creating space for meaningful conversations about partnerships, science communication, art integration, and more.

Break for lunch and gallery viewing

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Please choose 1 of the below sessions to attend:

• Session 1: Accessible STEAM Futures: Empowering Creativity, Exploration, and Learning Through AI

Victor Villegas (Oregon State University, Division of Extension & Engagement / University IT)

Discover how artificial intelligence can help make STEAM education more creative, accessible, and engaging for diverse learners. In this interactive session, participants will explore practical ways to use AI as a tool for designing STEAM activities, creating simple educational web applications, and integrating the Arts into polar learning experiences. Through real-world examples, attendees will learn how AI can support storytelling, visual creativity, scientific exploration, critical thinking, and student engagement, while promoting responsible and ethical use.

• Session 2: From Ice to Insight: Storylining Polar Science in the Classroom

Erin Edwards (Guilford County Schools)

How do we make polar science relevant and engaging for learners? In this session, we’ll use real-world Arctic phenomena to build a storyline that drives curiosity and learning. Participants will explore how to connect polar systems to local phenomena—such as weather patterns, sea level changes, or ecosystem impacts—to make learning meaningful and place-based. Participants will experience how students can connect ideas about climate, energy transfer, and Earth systems through questioning and sensemaking. Walk away with ready-to-use strategies to bring polar science to life in your classroom.

• Session 3: How to use feelings to enhance facts and narrative to drive research impact

David Baker (OSU Story Lab)

Scientists often feel the need to stick to the facts, and stories are sometimes seen as imprecise means of communicating scientific data. But humans have been using narrative to convey information about the physical world for thousands of years. This session will share ways you can tap time-tested storytelling tools to communicate the impact of your research.

• Session 4: Interpreting Research for Outreach Events using Engaging Activities

Jacklyn Drewry (Lincoln Park Zoo) and Heather Vingsness (University of Michigan Museum of Natural History)

During this workshop, we will provide guidance on how to create a meaningful outreach activity based on polar research/science. We will go over tips and tricks for facilitation as well as frameworks for developing an engaging activity. Leave with a blueprint for your own outreach activity.

• Session 5: Plein Air (out of doors) Painting in Fieldwork

Jacqueline Roberti (Boston University)

A watercolor painting workshop centered around capturing observations in the field. Participants will learn basic painting technique and how they might use art as a communication tool. No prior painting experience necessary! This session will occur outside if the weather cooperates.

• Session 6: Where Ice Meets Sound: The Creative Journey Behind the Music with Maeve Gilchrist and Seamus Egan

Join Maeve Gilchrist and Seamus Egan for a conversation and musical demonstration of Into the Ice, their Antarctic-inspired collaboration based on the era of Shackleton’s Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Through excerpts from the work and reflections on its creation, they will trace the journey from historical research and polar exploration to an immersive musical experience. Together, artists and participants will consider the shared qualities of curiosity, collaboration, and experimentation that drive both artistic creation and scientific inquiry.

Data Jam is a pedagogical approach where learners analyze authentic, real-world scientific datasets and communicate their findings through art modalities. Groups will be lead by researcher – artist pairings. Participants will ​​analyze a subset of the researcher’s​​​ scientific data and communicate their findings creatively using a selected art modalities with the guidance of an artist or art educator.

In September, we will share the researcher/artist pairings. Participants will be asked to rank their preference and will then be assigned to a group in advance. This event will conclude with a sharing of work.

• For educators, Data Jam supports learners with the development of data literacy, scientific content knowledge through engagement with real-world science, science communication skills, and arts-based skills and knowledge.   
• For researchers, Data Jam can be used to support broader impacts – helping learners engage with your science – and support your experience curating your data for general public engagement with your research. 
• For Artists and Polar Enthusiasts, Data Jam can showcase how different art modalities can be used to creatively express trends in data.

This dinner event is for researchers, educators, and artists who are currently participating or have participated in the Polar STEAM program as Fellows.

Our evening performance will feature a ground-breaking collaboration between Irish music icon Seamus Egan and lauded New York-based Scots-Irish harper Maeve Gilchrist. Using their common language of traditional Celtic music, Egan and Gilchrist explore one of the most extraordinary palettes imaginable: the Antarctic. The pair immerse us into the world of Ernest Shackleton’s 1914-17 Trans-Antarctic Expedition through a myriad of traditional instruments alongside electronic manipulation, sound design, poetry and spoken word. Step into the environment of ice, camaraderie, austere beauty and human ego — all set against the backdrop of Europe in World War I and an Irishman far from home.

Event start 7:00 p.m. Tickets are included in Summit registration. Learn more about this event here.

Grab your coffee and tea, have conversations, and get ready for the day!

This is a fast-paced, engaging opportunity for scientists to highlight their research and communicate why it matters. Presenters will each give a 4-min presentation using one static (non-animated) slide. Presentations should respond to the prompt:

Why Should We Care? A Science Worth Sharing. 

At the conclusion of the session, audience members will select a presentation winner for each of the following award categories:

• Ice Breaker Award: Best at making a complex topic accessible and relatable.
• Polar Echo Award: For the presentation whose story stayed with you.
• Tip of the Iceberg Award: For the presentation that made you realize there was more to this science than you thought.

Presenters (in alphabetical order) are:

• Abby Hudak – TBD
• Bradley Buckley – Sub-lethal heat stress in Antarctic fishes
• Clare Gaffey –  Phytoplankton growth cycles tuned to a new Arctic
• Deepa Dwyer – Echoes of Earth’s Forgotten Rhythms
• Julia Warren – Upland Tundra as a Weakening Methane Source Over 11-years of Permafrost Thaw
• Kate Stafford – The Arctic’s Singing Whale
• Katie Braun – From Polygons to Ponds: Tundra landscapes shift as the Arctic warms
• Kim Bernard – TBD
• Sierra Streit – The Argon Clock: Discovering the Age of the World’s Oldest Ice
• Susan Kaspari – Why Dirty Snow Matters
• Tricia Thibodeau – What can zooplankton guts tell us about climate change?
• Vanessa Hawkins – TBD

Please choose 1 of the below sessions to attend:

• Session 1: Bridging Polar Science and Visual Storytelling: Data-Journaling with the Arctic Report Card

Sarah Johnson (Wild Rose Education)

Transform complex polar data into compelling visual narratives using NOAA’s Arctic Report Card Resource Kit and the Beyond the Ice educational framework. In this interdisciplinary session, participants will experience an immersive look into the Beyond the Ice virtual learning architecture, using data-journaling as a wayfinding instrument to translate dense cryosphere data into accessible visual student experiences. Working with hands-on sketching routines and “Polar Proxy” templates, you will learn to navigate climate anxiety, bypass technical jargon, and foster deep climate agency across diverse audiences. Attendees will walk away with print-ready templates and a direct pathway to continue their learning through upcoming Beyond the Ice virtual course cohorts.

• Session 2: Color By Number: Data-driven Art Projects for your Classroom

Alexandra Rose (CU Science Discovery/McMurdo Dry Valleys LTER)

Explore climate data from the McMurdo Dry Valleys and the Colorado alpine using simple methods to create powerful and tactile data stories. Inspired by #ShowYourStripes, the Tempestry Project, and the art of Jill Pelto, participants learn ways to make environmental data accessible and fun for students, and will leave with a small piece of data art.

• Session 3: From Fieldwork to Exhibit: Translating Scientific Research in Public Spaces

Brittney Elizabeth Stoneburg (Western Science Center/California State University, Fullerton)

Athletes have arenas, musicians have concert halls, artists have galleries – and scientists have museums, aquariums, and other informal education spaces! From pitch to execution, we’ll go over what makes for a great exhibit or program, and how to translate extremely complex scientific research for a diverse, all-ages general audience. Bring a scientific research topic and your creativity as we explore how to make science engaging and accessible in public spaces.

• Session 4: Stories Behind the Numbers

Taylor Ohlstrom (Northfield High School, Denver Public Schools)

“Why does this matter and when will I ever use this?” are questions teachers often hear. In this session, participants will examine how storytelling and mathematics can blend together to tell the full story of a phenomenon. Using hands-on activities, participants will learn how they can blend data analysis with stories that add a human dimension to the numbers. At the end of the session, participants will leave with a ready to use resource on how they can blend stories with a mathematics topic.

• Session 5: Storytelling Science Through Sound and Video

Tricia Thibodeau (University of New England) and Kyra Sims (Artist)

Whether an artist, educator, or researcher, we all experience sounds in various ways that shape our experiences. Sound and video can serve as excellent forms of expression as well as science communication and education tools. This session will demonstrate to attendees via work samples and group discussions how incorporating sound and video can amplify their profession. Attendees will also see an example of how French hornist Kyra Sims utilized sound and video in an art piece conveying her experience participating in an Antarctic research cruise.

• Session 6: Turning Research into Effective Lessons

Heather Vingsness (University of Michigan Museum of Natural History)

Incorporating research into lesson plans can help students find relevance and connect content with real-world scenarios, but finding connections to your content can be tricky. Learn how to match research to content; how to interpret research in informal and formal learning situations; and how to use the stories of real researchers to create connections with learners. Come away with a lesson outline to use at with your learners.

Break for lunch and gallery viewing

Please choose 1 of the below sessions to attend:

• Session 1: Beyond the Ice: Designing Ecosystems of Belonging and Polar STEM Pathways

Nancy Coddington (SciComm Solutions)

Polar science can feel physically and culturally distant, but we can bridge that gap. To inspire the next generation, we must shift our perspective. STEM identity isn’t an innate trait individuals bring with them; it’s an ecosystem we construct through intentional design. This interactive session introduces a practical STEM Identity Framework built on four core pillars. We will explore how to reframe polar science by weaving together language, narrative, and cultural relevance. While the framework provides the structure, we will demonstrate how art integration and storytelling serve as powerful hooks to foster learner agency and ownership. Whether you are aiming to deepen student self-efficacy, a researcher looking to maximize broader impacts, seeking ways to increase community engagement, or an artist grounding your practice in authentic data, this workshop offers the tools to move from theory to immediate action. Join us to collaborate across disciplines and co-create intentional, inclusive ecosystems where all learners can see a future for themselves in polar science.

• Session 2: Bridging the Gap: How Nature, Art, and Science Can Bring Cultural Change within School Populations

Lauren Kurzius (Manville School District, NJ)

Based on the teaching platform Voices from the Land, this workshop aims to help participants build meaningful relationships with the natural world while fostering respect for diverse people and cultures.The workshop is designed to connect participants from around the world through shared cultural experiences rooted in nature, helping them feel more engaged with and connected to their school communities. Through hands-on activities, participants will explore natural environments, reflect on found materials, and create ephemeral art. They will also compose poetry that expresses the “voice” of their creations. With an emphasis on storytelling, art, nature, language, and community-building, the workshop encourages creative expression while strengthening connections between students and their environments.

• Session 3: Drawing the Distance Closer: Making Polar Science Visible

Wendi Pillars (Chatham Youth Development Center)

Polar science holds powerful stories, but they can easily get buried under technical language, complex data, and too much information. In this hands-on session, we will use simple visual-thinking and storytelling tools to bring those stories forward. Participants will work with real polar science, make choices about what deserves to be seen, and explore how to make complex ideas clearer for various audiences without oversimplifying them. No drawing experience is needed, just curiosity and a willingness to think on paper. Participants will create a rough one-page explanation for a specific audience and leave with a process they can use in classrooms, research, outreach, museums, and public communication.

• Session 4: Language Erratics: Poetry and Photography in Conversation with a Changing Arctic

Hannah Larrabee (University of New Hampshire MFA) and Jacinda Russell (Artist)

In this session, arists will present Language Erratics: an ekphrastic collaboration inspired by their Arctic Circle Residency in Svalbard. Through a series of poems and photographs, their project explores fragmentation, impermanence, and humanity’s fragile place within a rapidly changing Arctic ecosystem. Participants will be invited to engage in a creative exercise, brainstorming and sharing ideas for interpreting polar photographs, scientific data, and research concepts through the transformative power of metaphor.

• Session 5: Using Storytelling to Enhance Student Buy-In

Kiley Preheim

This session will use a storytelling approach to engaging in polar science. We will start with a science storytelling demonstration to engage the audience and demonstate how to engage learners. Next, I will present some data and information about the storyline approach to science teaching. Finally, by providing some examples of starting places and facilitating the integration of polar phenomena and and stories into this instructional approach, you will work to construct part of a storyline for your own learners using polar data or stories.

• Session 6: When Data Sings: Turning Polar Science into Art

Lisa Werner (When Data Sings: Turning Polar Science into Art)

Scientific data has the power to inform, but art has the power to make people feel. In this interactive session, participants will discover how artists transform complex scientific data into compelling works of art that help audiences connect with research on a deeper, more emotional level. Explore inspiring examples of data-inspired creations, learn practical strategies for guiding students through the artistic interpretation of scientific data, and experience the creative process firsthand by designing your own data-driven work of art. Whether your passion is science, art, music, or interdisciplinary teaching, you’ll leave with engaging ideas that empower students to communicate science in ways that are both meaningful and memorable.

Please choose 1 of the below sessions to attend:

• Session 1: Constructing Meaning: Editing Visual Narratives for Science and Field Research

Tom Turner (Anchorage School District)

Scientific and field-based projects often generate hundreds of images, maps, notes, and observations, but meaning rarely exists in a single photograph. This interactive workshop explores how artists, educators, and researchers can transform raw visual documentation into compelling narratives through editing, sequencing, and visual storytelling. Participants will learn practical strategies for refining thematic focus and constructing cohesive visual stories while actively editing their own images during the session. The workshop emphasizes visual storytelling as a powerful tool for communicating scientific inquiry, environmental observation, and field experience.

• Session 2: Data Is Not the Story: Designing Scientific Narratives That Communicate

Janice Ledgerwood (Clovis Community College)

This workshop explores how narrative and design shape the way scientific knowledge is understood and shared. Participants will identify the story within their research or teaching—its core question, tension, and stakes—and experiment with framing and metaphor as tools for communication. The session then moves into visual translation, introducing strategies for organizing information through hierarchy, flow, and reduction. Participants leave with a refined narrative and practical approaches to creating more coherent and engaging scientific visuals.

• Session 3: Experiments in Theatre: Performing Science

Heather Beasley (Miners Alley Playhouse)

Scientists and artists both share the needs for public attention to our work, and the desire to deepen engagement with our ideas. But how to turn science into stage art? In this hands-on workshop, you’ll explore writing and improv exercises that will help you create the human interest stories that make science memorable to general audiences.

• Session 4: From Ice Cores to Layer Cakes: A New Language for Polar Storytelling

Rose McAdoo (Artist)

For more than a decade, artist and field operations leader Rose McAdoo has worked across Antarctica and the Arctic, translating scientific research into edible experiences that invite audiences to literally consume complex environmental stories. Through photographs, behind-the-scenes process, and interactive exercises, this session explores how flavor, texture, temperature, memory, and participation can become powerful tools for communicating polar science beyond traditional outreach. Participants will leave with a practical framework for translating their own research, educational content, or creative practice into multisensory experiences that foster curiosity, conversation, and lasting understanding.

• Session 5: Practical Strategies for Integrating the Arts with STEM: Frameworks, Tools, and Fun

Libby Grace (Greater Oregon STEM Hub)

In this interactive workshop, we’ll explore three practical education frameworks that support the merging the arts and STEM: Julia Marshall’s Five Ways to Integrate, the Data Jam instructional approach, and Visual Thinking Strategies. We’ll start with a quick look at what arts-integration actually means (and why it’s worth the effort), then get hands-on — exploring real student examples while creating and sharing art using each of these strategies. Come ready to have a little fun and leave with strategies you can put to work right away. Open to those who are new to these approaches as well as those who want to deepen their understanding an application.

Please choose 1 of the below sessions to attend:

• Session 1: Breaking Into Art for Science

Eric Sanders (Sci-Port Discovery Center)

This session celebrates the merging of art and science through the use of interactive mini-drawing activities about the natural world. These drawings activities are accessible for all skill levels, whether you’ve been drawing for decades or this is the first time you’ve ever picked up a drawing pencil. Come join us as we fuse scientific observations with artistic illustration!

• Session 2: Building Ocean Literacy – Dive into the Fascinating World of Plankton, Krill, and Microbes

Lyanne Abreu (Whatz Your Wild?)

Inspired by National Geographic’s Perpetual Planet’s Ocean Expeditions, participants will explore activities that uncover the hidden world of plankton, krill, and microbes in polar regions. Participants will investigate krill migrations, hydrothermal vent ecosystems, and the remarkable microbes that thrive in extreme environments, including brine channels within sea ice. The session highlights the essential role of the deep sea to sea ice in sustaining polar food webs.

• Session 3: Less Clicking, More Thinking: Low-Tech Strategies for High-Impact Learning

Jeff Grant (Downers Grove North High School)

Explore practical, research-informed strategies for engaging learners through hands-on, non-digital experiences that promote deeper thinking, observation, and retention. This session will highlight a variety of simple tools and techniques that help students make connections, process information, and communicate their understanding through writing, drawing, and data exploration. Participants will experience adaptable classroom activities that foster inquiry, creativity, and critical thinking across grade levels and content areas. These approaches can be implemented with minimal materials while increasing student engagement and ownership of learning.

• Session 4: Linking the Why to the How in STEAM Education

Heather Fischer (Oregon State University)

STEAM is a complicated concept, we hope this session will help participants think about what they are trying to accomplish with their STEAM activities and articulate the value of STEAM as a tool to engage broad audiences. We will challenge participants to ask how do their activities engage audiences in polar related science and how do STEAM activities support audiences to develop a holistic understanding of polar science. We will walk through an example of a STEAM activity that has been evaluated for arts integration and science learning. This example will provide a template for participants to reflect on their own STEAM activities.

• Session 5: Postcards to Antarctica

Nadine Defranoux (Artist/Writer)

The session will briefly examine the artwork created by a group of 132 contributors during the 2025 Homeward Bound expedition of women and non-binary scientists, leaders and innovators, to Antarctica. The participants will then be lead into decorating their own card, and writing their declarations of hope and action dedicated to the white continent. This will also create and opportunity to discuss the importance and the role krills and whales play in the world as we know it. And discuss if/how penguins sleep!

• Session 6: Singing the Science of the South Pole Telescope

Laurie Orth (Jessye Norman School of the Arts)

This session will introduce the collaborative musical resource featuring “Amy’s in Antarctica.”  Clips of the YouTube series will be shown, along with group singing the 3 songs, attendee participation using the boom whackers and sight reading the sheet music along with simple movements (for “Baby Pictures of the Universe.”) Session attendees will leave with a song in their heart about the cosmic microwave background and an introduction to the work of a stem researcher at the South Pole.