ACES weekend!!!

ACES is a conference that the FFA holds every year for three straight weekends in February. As a school you choose one weekend to go. I never went as a student but experienced it for the first time two years ago when we took the Korean students who were over here visiting at Penn State.

This past weekend I was able to experience it again but as a student teacher. This is an event just like National Convention where you are able to connect with your students on a different level compared to the classroom setting that they are used to. Being on this trip I also got to connect with FFA members that I do not have in class which was a great opportunity.

A side from being a student and attending the workshops I got to attend the teacher workshops which were very well run. The most enjoyable one was the inquiry based workshop on tragedy of the commons which is actually a lesson I already had on my list to bring in during my populations unit. However by attending this workshop I got the real materials needed compared to my make shift ones I have come up with.

This was a short conference/trip compared to National Convention but taking all but 20 more students made it more interesting. This involved doing the curfew night checks for more than just one room and trying to reserve enough tables for meals that way the whole group was able to  sit together was an eye opener for me because even when I was in FFA and went to conferences like this with being a small school we never had more than eight people go.