Grand Valley State University, along with Grand Rapids Public Schools and Kent Intermediate School District has, after two years in the making, brought Grand Rapids’ first annual Share Fair and STEMosphere to Michigan teachers.

Both events will take place in downtown Grand Rapids with the Share Fair in GVSU’s DeVos Center and the STEMosphere in the Grand Rapids Public Museum.

The first half of the event, the Share Fair, embodies a new approach to professional development for teachers and seeks to inform them of practices and new technologies that can be easily implemented in the classroom. This is far different from the lectures of teachers’ conferences in the past.

“They talked about professional development where they would go to a classroom with no windows and sit through these long power point presentations,” said Michael Cousins, communications and technology specialist for the GVSU charter schools office. “They’d pay $150 for an underwhelming meal and just be really frustrated about professional development.”

The Share Fair, created originally by an organization called Share Fair Nation, a nonprofit based in Denver, was started in 2009 and seeks to make professional development a celebration for teachers with a “hands on, brains on” appeal, rather than a hassle.

Registration is free for teachers since they are required by the state to obtain “continuing education clock hours,” which were not free at past fairs. Cousins said teachers get a gourmet lunch and a “swag bag” to take home with them. They also get the option to enroll in a prize drawing at the end of the day with prizes including iPads, laptops and educational technologies they can implement in their classrooms.

“All sessions of the conference have to be hands-on and highly engaging. That was one of the key things that Share Fair nation wanted to ensure: that the teachers, even with all of these great perks, were not forced to sit in these classrooms and be bored.”

Conferences focusing on STEM subjects, literacy, college career readiness and cultural competency have been created by Michigan teachers for Michigan teachers and follow all state requirements so that they can be implemented at school.

After the Share Fair, the Grand Rapids Public Museum will host Share Fair’s STEMosphere event, an opportunity for Grand Rapids communities to experiment with activities within the STEM fields, which is free to the public. Twenty to 30 organizations such as YMCA, Destination Imagination and the Ann Arbor Children’s Museum will be at the event presenting educational technologies and programs for kids to work with.

Guests can stop by and test their engineering skills or take part in an event called “Trash in Fashion” which allows kids to take recycled materials and design their own wardrobe. The zoo will be also there with animals and animal tracking technology.

Teachers are encouraged to attend in order to utilize the practices and technologies from their conference in real time and interact with the kids already participating.

“They’re encouraged to go to STEMosphere after their conferences and check it out because the exhibitors and vendors there are going to have some sort of educational programming that teachers can partner and connect with, typically at no cost,” said Amirah Vosburgh, manager of programs and marketing at GVSU Charter Schools.

GVSU students, especially teaching majors are encourages to attend STEMosphere to interact with other teachers and K-12 students using the technologies at hand. Attendees are also encouraged to visit the Women in STEM panel, part of a larger focus by the expo on women in the fields.

Already, anticipation for the event is high and GVSU has even higher hopes for its future. Vosburgh and Cousins believe the Share Fair and STEMosphere programs can change training for teachers across the state while allowing Grand Rapids community members time to create something in the STEM fields at no charge.

“Our goal is to make this an annual event, the question is if it will start taking place across the state. Hopefully we’ll know that by the end of this year,” Vosburgh said.