Teacher's Day At AirVenture 2007, Part One
by ANN Correspondent Maxine Scheer
On Friday, July 27 at the Experimental Aircraft Association's
(EAA) Eagle Hangar, teachers gathered to learn and share activities
that educate through aviation. Approximately 1,000 teachers
attended the half-day event and were greeted with appreciation for
their interest and with inspirational thoughts from notable
aviation leaders that included FAA Administrator Marion Blakey, and
world renowned aviator Dick Rutan.
Attendees had the choice of 12 workshops, which covered the
development and use of curriculum designed to inspire a love of
aviation in classrooms from K-12.
Administrator Blakey acknowledged teachers have the toughest
job, "educating youth to be ready for anything." Aviation opens
world after world of valuable experiences, says Blakey. "We all
agree the American education system is in trouble. The US is not
growing enough engineers and [many of] the engineers we do grow are
returning to their home countries." She commended the efforts of
EAA and the other conference participants in taking the extra step
and teaching kids that aviation is accessible to everyone -- and
that it is really "cool."
Amy Lind Corbett, FAA Administrator for the New England Region,
presented Administrator Blakey with a gift from the FAA Regional
Administrators for her leadership in increasing awareness of the
needs for aviation education and establishing FAA partnerships with
EAA, the Civil Air Patrol (CAP), and NASA for aviation
education.
Ken Cook, President of the National Coalition for Aviation
Education (NCAE) provided a brief overview of NCAE's work in
aviation education and presented the Mervin K. Strickler Award for
"Lifelong Contributions and Personal Commitment to Aerospace
Education" to Judith Rice, Executive Director of Careers in
Aviation, Inc. (An interview with Ms. Rice was featured recently in
Aero-News.)
Dick Rutan, world-renowned aerospace
engineer, conveyed to the audience his experience as a young man in
a world that couldn't imagine that it would be possible to design
and build an aircraft that could go around the world without
stopping or refueling - an achievement he made in 1986 with the
aircraft Voyager.
"What we do as a species relies in your hands," says Mr. Rutan
(right). "People under our tutelage don't know what they are
capable of and it's our responsibility to motivate and encourage
them to imagine doing what [conventional wisdom] says can't be
done". He used a number of examples, such as flying at the speed of
light or expanding the technology and application of
biogenetics.
Jamail Larkins, FAA and Young Eagles spokesperson, relayed
statistics about the decline in pilots and upcoming wave of
retirements in maintenance, air traffic control and aviation
business arenas. He also emphasized the importance and impact of
mentoring.
Patrick Leaveck, of Project Lead the Way (PTLW), estimates that
the organization has reached over 250,000 school age children and
has over $12 million invested in a curriculum that is available to
any teacher, free of charge. An estimated 1,600 schools are
currently participating in PTLW programs.
After listening to the presenters, teachers proceeded to the
workshops... which we'll delve into greater detail about in Part 2
tomorrow.
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