I just have to share this information for those that don’t know about this #FREE #STEM #Conference every year in Orlando. The Florida Engineering Education Conference (FEEC) is hosted each year in the spring by the College of Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of Central Florida (UCF) in East Orlando. UCF has hosted this STEM conference for Florida Educators since 2006. The conference used to be held at the end of April, but for the last couple of years that I know of, has been the first Friday in March. This year, the conference will be held on Friday, March 2, 2018 at the Student Union at UCF.

This will be my second year presenting at the conference, and one of my favorite STEM conferences to attend. It is always a pleasure to attend this conference. The sessions are always great, and I love meeting new people and learning new things at the conference. You can usually find STEM presentations from the Florida Association of Science Teachers (FAST), the Orlando Science Center (OSC), the US Army, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Education. Last year, I learned about using robotics in the elementary classroom, integrating STEM in elementary schools, planting a school garden, and other great STEM lesson ideas. The conference is done by 3:30 so you can get a jump start on your drive home, and your weekend.

If you have never been, the University of Central Florida is a beautiful campus with lots of lakes and wooded areas, a perfect escape from the common classroom! Lunch is included with the registration, with water, coffee, and tea set up in the main ballroom/conference hall throughout the conference. Should you get a hankering for a pick-me-up snack before or after lunch  (like maybe breakfast time) there are some restaurants on the main floor of the Student Union that you could visit, such as Starbucks and Smooth King, to name a few. And for those that enjoy dining outdoors, there is a lovely deck behind the Student Union with with umbrella covered tables and wooded walkways that lead off into a Cyprus forest.

I would recommend getting to the campus early as the parking garage fills up quickly between conference guests and students. You can find more information about the conference and registration at FEEC’s webpages on the UCF website: http://stem.ucf.edu/feec/. If you decide to go, look me up, I’ll be presenting about Engineering in Elementary Life Sciences!