Over the last couple of years, I've shared a number of things I have done to incorporate aviation into the classroom and after school aviation club. My school (a public charter) has been very supportive of me and supportive of the concept of STEM education. Therefore, they gave me some money to put together a simulator for the kids. So here is what my students are playing with these days:

I don't own an aircraft but for the record the students were flying a Maule M-7-260C Orion




Microsoft Flight Simulator Deluxe Edition
Saitek Pro Flight Cessna Bundle - Rudder Pedals, Trim, Instrument and Throttle Quadrant.

So Cool!!

Nice work. My kids don't get anything like that.

That's beyond cool!! Good work, Titus577!!

Not the best quality but gives you a perspective of the visuals.

That rolls pretty good for a Maule!

Great job Titus ! THANK YOU for making this effort.

Might I suggest that you incorporate a presentation about Young Eagles, or a flyer pointing the kids and parents toward Young Eagles, Aviation Explorers, CAP, 99's etc.?

I'm not sure what part of town you're in... this may be irrelevant:

If your local EAA chapter does not have an ongoing Young Eagles program, or a large enough program, our chapter at KWHP will be glad to step in and fly your kids at our monthly YE flight rallies.

Also be glad to help point you to resources for model airplane building activities.

Also be glad to offer a little bit of pro bono assistance with grant funding proposals if you do not have a good grantwriter.

EZFlap wrote:Great job Titus ! THANK YOU for making this effort.

Might I suggest that you incorporate a presentation about Young Eagles, or a flyer pointing the kids and parents toward Young Eagles, Aviation Explorers, CAP, 99's etc.?

I'm not sure what part of town you're in... this may be irrelevant:

If your local EAA chapter does not have an ongoing Young Eagles program, or a large enough program, our chapter at KWHP will be glad to step in and fly your kids at our monthly YE flight rallies.

Also be glad to help point you to resources for model airplane building activities.

Also be glad to offer a little bit of pro bono assistance with grant funding proposals if you do not have a good grantwriter.

I'm near KHMT and French Valley is our local chapter of EAA. They always do a big Young Eagles event down in Fallbrook. I'm a member of EAA and provided a free flight for students a couple years ago and will probably do it again in January/February.

Thanks for offering assistance on grantwriting, I'll send you a pm with some questions.

Here is a link to our aviation club website - http://sjvaaviationclub.wordpress.com/

Is that a really little kid or are those ovesized radios?
Seriously, thanks for giving back to the community.

I always did aviation in my science classes for my 17 years of teaching. Kids loved it.... rockets too.
The big problem... as I see it (and this will appear very sexist) is the lack of science knowledge at the elementary level. By women teachers.
If you can't or don't teach science.... then aviation sure isn't going to make your lesson plans.
Reading/Math/ social studies....all well covered. By the time a kid gets to junior high... if he/she has had mostly female teachers, is probably way behind in STEM knowledge. It is up to the parents to plan for enrichment.
Now before you flame me... I taught with faculty from Alaska to Australia for almost two decades. Science in the classroom (for female teachers) was very thin.
Don't know the answer to the problem. The results are clear to see, when you compare our ratings to foreign school systems.
By high school.... there are typically fantastic female science, biology, STEM teachers all over our schools. But it is a bit late to inspire some kids by then.

We have our high school signed-up to take part in the Aviation Design Challenge sponsored by the General Aviation Manufactures Association and Build-A-Plane.

Students learn the science of flight and the engineering involved in designing aircraft. A company called Fly to Learn provides the curriculum using X-Plane and Plane Maker. The students are required to modify an aircraft, fly it, and then it is judged based on certain criteria. Last year the winning team had an all expense paid trip to build a Glassair Sportsman in their Two Week To Taxi program.

You can check out some info here:
http://www.gama.aero/advocacy/aviation-education/stem
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10 ... =2&theater

I'll keep you all up to date.

I was a HS physics and chemistry teacher. I agree with the weak science knowledge in primary education. When I was taking my writing for education class, the girl next me asked what I was going to teach. I said physical science secondary. She said, oh I love phy ed.....I said not phy ed, physical science, ie chemistry and physics. She then tells me she HATES science, and that is why she is in elementary education. Hard to get kids motivated in a subject you hate.

Sad.

Jake

Excellent conversation.

I was in contact with titus577 last year about his program, trying to inspire our school here to do something with it. They (we) haven't. You guys are exactly right...no science in the elementary level. By the time they get to our one male teacher who teaches 7 grades of science and math, he's so busy teaching basic stuff that he is overwhelmed. That makes it real hard to try new stuff.

We are going to discuss this more with the administrators. Thanks for the wakeup call!

GBflyer,
One of my interesting years of teaching was in Klawock... on Prince of Wales Island.
My sixth, seventh and 8th graders loved science. We did everything from hot air balloons, rocketry, high speed strobe photography, Apple computer data sensors, and aviation.
Hope some of them went on to college.
A former student I had in Prescott is finishing his doctorate in particle physics now at MIT. I know I got that one interested.... for sure.
Cheers and have a happy holiday

Our elementary teachers here do a good job, I am not down on them at all. They do environmental science projects all the time, weekly trip to the beach conducting various experiments, etc. It's a very "environmental" community. We do lack in the other fields of science. The little kids eat it up, but it doesn't seem to follow through to the MS/HS and to that end we lose a significant percentage of the higher level kids to boarding schools or in some cases the families will pick up and move.

We just need to do a better job of using all the technology that's available through distance education, and make it a lot more fun. We are now competing for their attention with XBox and Play Station.

Merry Christmas to you as well!

I think one of the main reasons the history and science classes have been pushed aside in K-8th grade during the last decade or more is the high stakes testing and low scores in Mathematics and English. We are moving into a different era of education but in the past, students in K-8 only took a math and english language arts end of the year state exams. Schools received a grade (AYP and API) based on these scores along with a couple other factors. Students only took a state exam in history and science during 5th and 8th grade. With so much at stake with these test, no wonder schools heavily emphasized math and english while only getting to history or science if there was time.

In addition, at many middle schools if a student is performing below grade level in Math or English they would be put in a double period and not receive history and or science. I've taught a couple of these double period classes and let me tell you if they didn't get it in one hour they have no interest in the second hour. As a result of the economic troubles many schools eliminated this double period concept to save money. I hope it doesn't return and they develop better intervention strategies for helping low performing students.

I'm not totally sure what the Common Core era will to education but we have a strong up hill bringing back history and science to the primary grade levels....I know the elementary teachers at my school do a good job at teaching the histories and sciences.

I'm not exactly sure what a public charter school" is-- my take is that it's sort of a private school with (at least partial) public funding. I didn't know what STEM education was either, until I googled it.
STEM sounds great, provided of course that the basics are covered-- in other words, the three R's. The teenage kids I talk to these days generally aren't into reading- why bother, they can watch it on video. Math? Calculators built into their smart phones. Writing? y bthr, othr thn txtng? I remember one young lady who fouled up my ticket three times at a local café, even using the smart register, The reason-- she kept forgetting "that little dot" (decimal point) when entering the prices.
I don't have any kids, but I think schools should concentrate on things more applicable to real life -- how to balance a checkbook, how to decipher their paycheck stub to make sure the boss isn't cheating them, how to do their taxes at least through the 1040EZ form. I think not everyone needs to go to college, or should. I've seen kids put through an expensive 4 year college education, then after graduation come home and get a job waitressing or clerking in a store. I think more emphasis ought to be put on physical labor, like the building and construction trades-- I've never seen a computer frame a house or pour cement on a jobsite yet, and probably (hopefully) I never will.
Funding for education-- I'm a retired sheet metal worker, and the majority of my work in the last 20 years has been public works, including several schools. In my experience, an immense amount of money is often spent creating an architectural wet dream when designing and constructing the buildings, when all that is needed is a simple (yet attractive) box to keep the kids teachers and educational stuff warm & dry. It pisses me off when at least a building costs at least 50% more to build than it should because of bullshit fancy-ass features, and later that same school or school district will talk about laying off teachers and/or increasing class size because of a budget crunch.

hotrod180 wrote:I'm not exactly sure what a public charter school" is-- my take is that it's sort of a private school with (at least partial) public funding. I didn't know what STEM education was either, until I googled it.
STEM sounds great, provided of course that the basics are covered-- in other words, the three R's. The teenage kids I talk to these days generally aren't into reading- why bother, they can watch it on video. Math? Calculators built into their smart phones. Writing? y bthr, othr thn txtng? I remember one young lady who fouled up my ticket three times at a local café, even using the smart register, The reason-- she kept forgetting "that little dot" (decimal point) when entering the prices.
I don't have any kids, but I think schools should concentrate on things more applicable to real life -- how to balance a checkbook, how to decipher their paycheck stub to make sure the boss isn't cheating them, how to do their taxes at least through the 1040EZ form. I think not everyone needs to go to college, or should. I've seen kids put through an expensive 4 year college education, then after graduation come home and get a job waitressing or clerking in a store. I think more emphasis ought to be put on physical labor, like the building and construction trades-- I've never seen a computer frame a house or pour cement on a jobsite yet, and probably (hopefully) I never will.
Funding for education-- I'm a retired sheet metal worker, and the majority of my work in the last 20 years has been public works, including several schools. In my experience, an immense amount of money is often spent creating an architectural wet dream when designing and constructing the buildings, when all that is needed is a simple (yet attractive) box to keep the kids teachers and educational stuff warm & dry. It pisses me off when at least a building costs at least 50% more to build than it should because of bullshit fancy-ass features, and later that same school or school district will talk about laying off teachers and/or increasing class size because of a budget crunch.

A public charter school is funded by taxes just like a "normal school". They are open to all children, don't charge tuition, and dont have special entrance requirements.

http://www.publiccharters.org/get-the-f ... r-schools/


What's different than from a normal school? Less burracuracy thus more money actually going to students and the classroom, greater diversity in educational opportunities, and better results. Over the last few years our school has out performed other schools in the area. Same demographic of students, same socioeconomic status, just a better education.

Our school has the mentality that not all students will/should go to college but "all" students will be able to.

Updating some of the progress my school is making to offer aviation experiences to our students. Over the summer, we held an "Aviation Institute" which taught students some basic ground school concepts (Bernoulli's principal and Newtons 3rd law, cause and effect of density altitude, weight and balance, flight instruments, weather reporting, etc). Students flew flight simulators, built and flew RC airplanes, built and tested foam wings on a wing tester. Students were able to add flaps and change the angel of attack to test how it changes the lifting ability of the wing.

In the fall we are bringing in a retired fish & game pilot/CFI to help offer more aviation experiences and expertise for our students. My goal is to continue to offer more and more aviation experiences for our students.

Here is a video of the program and a link to our site with more photos and descriptions.



https://sjvaaviationclub.wordpress.com/

Keep up the good work Titus 577. As Hotrod 180 said, schools, for the most part, are what the parents want them to be: show places where they want their kids to look better than the neighbors.