LANL Conference
October 11-12, 2012
Buffalo Thunder, New Mexico

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Dr. Jeff Goldstein, NCESSE Center Director, is a general session speaker at the Los Alamos National Laboratory 15th Annual Conference on Education to be held in Buffalo Thunder Resort, New Mexico, October 11-12, 2012. The conference theme is Effective Teaching. Conference attendees are teachers from across New Mexico that attend for a single day and can choose to attend either October 11 or October 12. Dr. Goldstein will be delivering the general session on both days, for a combined audience of 1,300 teachers.

Buffalo Thunder Address:

Science – It’s Not a Book of Knowledge … It’s a Journey

Every parent remembers that magical time when our children first began to speak, that moment marking the beginning of unending questions. In our children we can see our humanity — our innate curiosity — and recognize the obvious … that we are born to explore!

Science, in all its seeming complexity, is nothing but a means to organize curiosity. A way to empower one’s self to ask the gift of a question, and to hone the art that allows navigation through the noise of the universe around us in quest of an answer. It is an emotional, joyful, and wondrous journey that hopefully allows the traveler to pull back the veil of nature just a little, see how she operates, and celebrate the accomplishment.

Science education is no different. It is the means by which we immerse our children in the act of journey by letting them do science, and acknowledging it is their journey. As teachers, our sweet reward is seeing the joys of learning wash over them. And as teachers, we are charged with nothing less than patiently and gently launching the explorations of an entire generation.

Post Conference note from the conference organizers:

“Here are some of the responses from Teachers on a survey they completed regarding the Conference:”

Dr. Goldstein had me riveted to my seat!

It was wonderful!!!! He loves his field and his enthusiasm and ability to make complexity accessible; I found to be dazzlingly seductive. It was quite literally the best experience in a long, long time. Also he opened doors to further understanding of a most important and vital content area. Just wonderful!!!!

Dynamic.

I loved it.