As a science education major in NC State’s College of Education, Gillian Grimmick is always thinking about lesson plans and lab activities for her future classroom. So, she was thrilled when she had the opportunity to attend the National Science Teaching Association (NSTA) conference in Anaheim, California, in April. 

Grimmick, who serves as president of NC State’s NSTA chapter, attended the event with more than a dozen other College of Education students, who were able to find resources from organizations like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, World Wildlife Foundation and NASA. They also attended sessions related to topics such as engaging multilingual learners and managing materials in the science classroom. 

The opportunity was made available to each of the students who attended for free, thanks to professional development funding from Teaching Fellows at NC State, the Transformational Scholarships Program, Goodnight Scholarships and NC State’s NOYCE STEM Education Scholars program.

“Being able to secure funding for this conference meant the world,” said Grimmick, who is a Teaching Fellow, Transformational Scholar, and STEM Education Scholar. “National conferences like NSTA at Anaheim can be incredibly expensive and not accessible to everyone, especially university students. Being able to have this funding ensured that us students were able to have this experience that may not have been feasible otherwise.”

Transformational Scholars director Trisha Mackey said that contributing to professional growth through student participation in national conferences like NSTA can help prepare future teachers who are able to bring new ideas and expertise into their classrooms on day one.  

“These opportunities allow scholars to engage with innovative, research-based practices, connect with educators from across the country,” Mackey said. “For many students, financial support is the determining factor in whether they can participate in these transformative experiences.”

Kathleen Harrell, director of Teaching Fellows at NC State, said investing in opportunities for future educators to travel and attend national events will ultimately make a positive impact on the K-12 students they will ultimately teach. 

“Beyond the opportunity to travel across the country, students gain invaluable exposure to the vision, leadership, and impact of educators who are organizing, presenting and facilitating work at the national level,” Harrell said. “These experiences help fellows see themselves not only as future classroom teachers, but as leaders capable of shaping the profession and strengthening public education for years to come.”

“Funding opportunities like NSTA allow our science education students to engage in professional learning experiences that extend far beyond the classroom,” added Goodnight Scholarships Assistant Director Carson Anderson. “Attending as a cohort not only helped them develop individually as future educators but also strengthened their professional community through shared learning, collaboration and networking with educators from across the country.”

Gathering Resources for Future Classrooms 

For Teaching Fellow Judah Epps, the trip not only marked her first trip to a national conference, but her first time traveling to the west coast, and the funding meant that she was able to enjoy both experiences without figuring out how she would pay for the expense of cross-country travel.

Instead, she was able to focus on gathering resources at the NSTA Conference exhibit hall and learning new ideas that included making interactive notebooks and how to tie current events, like the recent NASA Artemis II moon mission, into classroom curricula. 

Some of the greatest moments, she said, came not from planned sessions and lectures but from the small interactions she had with in-service science teachers from across the country. 

“One of the biggest impacts was being able to interact with teachers from other states to see how they do things. That was really cool and something I wasn’t really expecting,” Epps said. “One of my favorite moments was at a station where we could decorate science goggles and a teacher was telling me and a friend all about their classroom management strategies.”

Georgia Alexander ’26, a Teaching Fellow and past NSTA chapter president at NC State who is currently preparing to enter her first year of teaching, was lucky enough to attend NSTA two years in a row.

She said the ability to attend twice let her mark the growth she was making as a budding educator. For example, Alexander said she was nervous to attend a large national conference the first year, but being more comfortable in the environment this time around allowed her to be more intentional about her goals for attending. 

“I came more prepared and versed in what to expect from the conference, and spent more time fostering connections with other teachers and proponents of education to spend my time in a way more explicitly connected to applications for my students and future classroom,” she said. 

Last year, when the conference was held in Pennsylvania, Alexander played a role in planning and organizing the trip for College of Education students. She is grateful that she had multiple opportunities to interact with other science educators and experts from across the United States and to integrate what she learned at both conferences into the lessons she was learning through her College of Education coursework. 

“Attending a conference at this scale allowed me to see beyond the scope of our very wonderful science education program and identify room for improvement that I was able to bring back to our community of pre-service teachers through professional development sessions planned and executed through our NSTA chapter at NC State as president,” she said. 

Coley Welch ’26, a Teaching Fellow and Goodnight Scholar, also had the opportunity to attend the NSTA conference more than once and was excited to guide other students who were attending for the first time to some of his favorite resource booths. As a beginning teacher who has an interest in teaching forensic science, he was personally excited about blood typing kits and murder-mystery scenarios he could use in his future classroom. 

Over the years, he said he has fielded questions about why he would want to attend the same conference more than once, but each time he has gained something new for the experience and he is grateful to Assistant Teaching Professor of Science Education Matt Reynolds for his support in encouraging students to have these experiences outside the College of Education.

“That is the beauty of my career. We can go in every day and learn something new, and it holds for the NSTA conference as well,” Welch said. “I am a testament to [Dr. Reynolds’] work as well as how much good a conference like this can do.”

Reynolds himself attended NSTA as an undergraduate student, where he got tools he later used in his science classroom. Because he knows firsthand the lasting impact attending a conference like NSTA can have, helping his students in the College of Education access similar opportunities and understand the community and support they will receive from the science educator community after graduation is important to him. 

“Because of that experience, helping our students access these opportunities has become something I really value as a program coordinator. I am grateful that we were able to leverage support from several different funding sources to bring as many students as possible,” Reynolds said. “This conference is a learning opportunity for them, but it is also a learning opportunity for me. I always come back with a clearer sense of what our program is doing well, where we can continue to grow, and new resources that can help us prepare extraordinary science educators.”