From Campuses to Conferences: PopEd Travels the US for Spring Teacher Workshops

Written by Pamela Wasserman, Senior Vice President for Education | Published: June 16, 2025

Our PopEd team just finished several months of winter and springtime travel to bring our curriculum to current and future teachers around the country. From January through May, staff traveled to nine states to present workshops at educational conferences and universities. Here are some highlights from recent trips by team members Bennett Steidinger, Barbara Huth, Cara Borja, Laura Short, Lindsey Bailey, and Carol Bliese.

Bennett leads students at James Madison University in Virginia in the “Web of Life” interactive story

Bennett’s travels took her to several campuses in the Boston area, including Tufts University, where Professor Steve Cohen has been hosting PopEd workshops for his graduate students for nearly 30 years! At Endicott College in Beverly, students reflected on how PopEd lessons connect to Massachusetts Learning Standards, and made plans to use them in their student teaching classrooms. Bennett also presented at the National Conference on Science Education in Philadelphia where she shared new elementary lessons she created for PopEd.

Just weeks after devastating fires in the Los Angeles area, Barbara worked with student teachers at five universities in the region. Several of the hosting professors were inspired to enroll in our PopEd Leadership Institute planned for this July at UCLA, so that they can continue to provide workshops in their teaching methods courses for years to come.

Cara received a warm welcome from professors and student teachers in Upstate New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Nebraska. In the “Cornhusker State,” she engaged students on three campuses including the state’s flagship, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, where she facilitated workshops for all of the elementary science methods classes.

Our team covered other parts of the Midwest, too, including Laura’s travels to campuses around Iowa (Des Moines, Iowa City, and Cedar Falls), and Lindsey’s week at universities in and around Chicago.

Carol finished the team’s spring travel with workshops up and down Florida’s Gulf Coast.

In all, our staff and volunteer trainers facilitated 272 workshops for nearly 5,000 future and current teachers in 39 states and four Canadian provinces through May. Plans are underway to reach even more educators during our fall workshop season.

Visit the Population Education website for more information on our workshop locations.

Teachers visit the PopEd booth at the National Conference on Science Education in Philadelphia
Science teachers at the National Conference on Science Education in Philadelphia play the collaborative board game “Lessons from The Lorax”
University of Nebraska students create models of carbon emissions from different countries in “Carbon Crunch”
Students at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh examine data in “Pop Ecology Files”

Pamela Wasserman, pwasserman@popconnect.org