The teacher become the student

Philli was awesome - tons of American culture and history right in your face. The weather was crisp and clear which enabled us to enjoy our walks through the streets in between our conference sessions. The Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC) annual conference had, from what I could tell, a solid turn out. Derrick and I got a chance to become students for a bit and learn more about the industry we work in. There were dozens of booths for every element for museums and education.

I found out that there is a huge catalog this one vendor has that is entirely filled with dinosaur fossils! This thing would be a seven year old's fantasy. Scores and scores of pages filled with color pictures of fossils. Other vendors were showing off their star-labs, which are inflatable domes that project the night's sky on the ceiling. There were so many new things to look at and learn from that it took all day Saturday to do. Derrick and I even got to compete as dinosaurs in a simulation video game that just came into production.

It was not all fancy exhibits and games though. Two full days were occupied by group discussions and presentations about our specific field - outreach education. We learned a lot about how other educators and museums run their operation, which gave us confidence in our own method.

After the conference we got some repair work done on the truck. The fogger for the energy beam station is now almost fully functional, the phones are working for the aft fuel cell station, and the wheelchair lift is operational once again.

Last week had us in Jonesboro and Corning with some well-behaved and bright students. Three different groups were able to get all four sensors on at the energy beam station, which is a record so far for a single school.