Cast Conference for the Advancement of Sciene Teaching

I returned yesterday from being at CAST. The Texas Conference for the Advancement of Science Teachers held in Galveston. It was a very busy weekend in workshops and meeting teachers from all over the state. I feel as if I have learned more in 1 weekend than several weeks of training at district training. The weather was very good the people nice, but, they had nearly 6,000 teachers in attendance but only enough capacity in the workshops for about half of them at a time. Many teachers left in frustration after not being able to participate in any workshops. Many tried to have a "backup" plan, but, once the target workshop was filled they would probably have to get on a shuttle bus to be taken to another site and by the time they arrived the other workshop was either filled as well or had already started and well underway when they arrived. Hopefully next year the bugs will be worked out. The challenge for me now is to take what I have received and use it in the classroom as well as spread the wealth among my peers at work. I now feel energized and look forward to increasing my students interest using the ideas and information that I received.