Dow & AACT To Host Teacher Summit in the Philadelphia Area June 26–29, 2017

For the third year in a row, AACT is partnering with Dow Chemical Company to bring together K-12 teachers in Dow communities for professional learning and resource creation. This year’s week-long summit will include teachers from three Pennsylvania counties, including, Montgomery, Bucks, and Philadelphia County, as well as teachers from Burlington County, New Jersey.

This year’s teacher participants were introduced to the project through an online meeting in late January. From that time through the end of May they worked independently to create three classroom resources which will be published in the AACT Classroom Resource Library. During the project they also participated in peer review where they provided valuable feedback about the resources created by other participants.

The in-person summit will begin on June 26 at Dow’s Northeast Technology Center in Collegeville, Pennsylvania. The participants will have the opportunity to tour the facility and then meet Dow STEM Ambassadors. The teachers and ambassadors will work cooperatively to brainstorm ideas for development of a final classroom resource with real world connections.

The rest of the week will be spent at Bear Creek Mountain Resort & Conference Center in Lehigh Valley, PA. In addition to working collaboratively to create their final classroom resource, they will also build professional connections with teachers across grade levels and engage in professional learning. All of the resources created by the participants will be added to the AACT online resource library.

This will be the fourth Dow & AACT Teacher Summit. The first was held in 2015 in Midland, Michigan. There were two summits in 2016, one in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and the other in Austin, Texas. All participants receive a one-year membership to AACT and a stipend. They also gain valuable professional development and build connections with other teachers in their local communities.