2026 BCCE

🎧 New Chemistry For Your Life preview podcast episode!

Melissa talks with Prof. Resa Kelly of San José State University, moderator for the Community Conversation “Building Community, Curiosity, and Innovation through Technology in Chemistry Education.”

The conversation explores technology in , from visualizations and videos to flipped classrooms and AI. More importantly, it asks: What do we actually want students to be able to do in a technology-rich world? How should that shape our teaching? And how can educators stay curious without feeling pressured to adopt every new tool that comes along?

Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LZatE_x_Dw

Find Chem for Your Life wherever you listen: https://chemforyourlife.transistor.fm/subscribe

Chemistry For Your Life A podcast that helps you understand the fascinating chemistry hidden in your everyday life. Have you ever wondered why onions make you cry? Or how soap gets your hands clean? What really is margarine, or why do trees change colors in the fall? Melissa is a chemist, and to answer these questions she....

Special thank you to our PALLADIUM level sponsor, the American Association of Chemistry Teachers in association with the 150th Anniversary of the American Chemical Society!

View all sponsors here: https://bcce.divched.org/2026/sponsors

Poster presenters: reminder! 🦩

Poster sessions at will be hybrid, which means all poster presenters (whether presenting in person or remotely) will need to upload their poster materials to the virtual ExOrdo platform: https://virtualbcce2026.exordo.com/

Materials include your poster and a brief summary video. This will allow attendees to explore and engage with poster presentations online, in addition to the face-to-face poster sessions for those presenting in person.

More information for poster presenters is available here:
https://bcce.divched.org/2026/guidelines-poster-presenters

Detailed upload instructions are coming soon, so please keep an eye on your email and the BCCE 2026 website.

Special thank you to our PALLADIUM level sponsor, Van Griner Learning!

View all sponsors here: https://bcce.divched.org/2026/sponsors

The first podcast episodes are out! 🎧🦩

BCCE 2026 is partnering with Chemistry For Your Life on a special podcast series leading up to the conference, and the first two video episodes are now available!

In these opening conversations, we talk about what attendees should know before coming to Madison and what to expect from this year’s Community Conversations.

🎥 What should I know before I go to BCCE?
https://youtu.be/5RBnqpSawIE?si=kfdw2aZk44DIT3KK

🎥 What are Community Conversations at BCCE this year?
https://youtu.be/qaAXZB1zvRY?si=4tHAI6obJkiQrqI6

Prefer to listen? The audio from these first two conversations has been combined into one episode, available wherever you get your podcasts. Find all ways to listen here:
https://chemforyourlife.transistor.fm/subscribe

This series will continue on Mondays with episodes about getting ready for BCCE, this year’s conference theme, and the Conference Contexts shaping programming across the week. You’ll hear from the conference general chair, as well as Community Conversations action leads and moderators, about the ideas, questions, and opportunities behind BCCE 2026.

Listen, watch, and get ready for Madison!

University Housing Update!

Our online housing portal is currently closed because we have reached capacity for on-campus housing reservations.

We are continuing to review room assignments and may be able to reopen a limited number of double-occupancy rooms if additional space becomes available.

Attendees who have not yet secured on-campus housing are encouraged to explore hotel options as a backup plan: https://bcce.divched.org/2026/lodging

Thank you for your patience and understanding as we work through housing assignments.

Madison sits on a narrow isthmus of land between Lake Mendota and Lake Monona, a geographic situation so distinctive that it gives the city a character unlike any other state capital in the country. The Wisconsin State Capitol building sits at the highest point of that isthmus with a view down to both lakes simultaneously, a positioning that is either the result of exceptional urban planning or extraordinary geographic luck and probably both working together at exactly the right moment in 1836 when the territorial capital was established here.

The lakes are not amenities sitting alongside the city. They define its shape, its boundaries, its culture, and its daily life in ways that Madison residents understand instinctively and that visitors take a day or two to fully appreciate. The city cannot sprawl in certain directions because the water stops it, which has kept downtown Madison compact, walkable, and organized around the Capitol Square in a way that larger Midwest cities with more room to expand have never managed to maintain.

Lake Mendota is the largest of Madison's lakes and one of the most studied lakes in the world, the subject of continuous scientific research by the University of Wisconsin since the 1870s in the longest running freshwater research program in American history. The university sits on the lake's southern shore and the relationship between the institution and the water has shaped both in ways that are still producing scientific understanding more than 150 years later.

Madison's geography produced a city that is simultaneously a college town, a state capital, a lakeside community, and a thriving mid-sized city, all compressed onto an isthmus between two lakes in south central Wisconsin. The water hemmed it in and the constraint turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to it.

Special thank you to our PALLADIUM level sponsor, the UW-Madison Department of Chemistry!

View all sponsors here: https://bcce.divched.org/2026/sponsors

Special thank you to our GOLD level sponsor, Catalyst Education!

View all sponsors here: https://bcce.divched.org/2026/sponsors