Many of the speakers, panels and events at this year's SXSWedu conference require attendees to have access badges, but there are several activities open to the public. SXSWedu runs from March 6-9 at various venues in downtown Austin. The four-day conference, now in its seventh year, is a sort of prelude to other events during the South by Southwest family of conferences. With its education focus, SXSWedu brings together students, teachers, administrators and experts to discuss the future of teaching and learning. Here is a rundown of some of the SXSWedu activities that do not require badges to gain access.

The Expo

SXSWedu opens its conference expo to the public from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Tuesday, March 7. Entrance is free for the event, which is held in Exhibit Halls 3 and 4 at the Austin Convention Center, 500 E. Cesar Chavez St., Austin. Panel sessions and other highlights include:
  • Organizing for Change: Creating a No Place for Hate. Texas high school students from a low-income, Title I campus share their experiences from yearlong internships with teachers as well as their advocacy for banning discretionary suspensions for pre-kindergarten to second grade students.
  • How to "Grow Your Own" Teacher. Educators discuss steps to reinvent the urban school experience and deal with the education system's teacher shortage.
  • Secrets Revealed! How to Break the Fake News Cycle. Local student journalists and media professionals talk about how children followed news during the 2016 election and how learning to make news videos can help them better navigate the media landscape.
  • Performances by the Hutto High School varsity mixed choir; the music production class at Austin ISD's Kealing Middle School; ballet folklorico by students at Del Valle High School and Harmony School of Excellence; and Austin-based musician Jabu Mbara.

Film screenings 

Tickets for SXSWedu evening screenings and post-film Q-and-A sessions at the Stateside Theatre at the Paramount at 719 Congress Ave., Austin, are available to the public for $10. Seats are available on a first come, first served basis, and priority goes to attendees with conference badges. Each film begins at 7 p.m. Hidden Figures (Monday) Hidden Figures tells the story of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, three African-American women working at NASA who crossed gender and race lines in their work on a mission to launch to the first American astronaut, John Glenn, into Earth's orbit in 1962.
Newtown (Tuesday) Filmed over the course of nearly three years, "Newtown" documents the aftermath of the deadly Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting on Dec. 14, 2012.
Tower (Wednesday) Combining archival footage with rotoscopic animation, Tower uses first-person accounts to follow the events during the infamous mass shooting at The University of Texas Tower on Aug. 1, 1966.