Teaching Kids About Aviation
On your next Southwest
Airlines flight, you won't be asked to take a test, but you might
be asked to help grade a few papers.
Celebrating its seventh year, Southwest's Adopt- A-Pilot program
has successfully enhanced both educational activities for thousands
of students and community relations for the airline.
The award-winning Adopt-A-Pilot program includes creative teaching
tools and fun classroom activities, enabling Southwest Airlines
Pilots to personally connect with more than 18,000 fifth-grade
students across the country. This year, the free educational
program is also offered in Spanish, providing translated curriculum
and bilingual Pilots to mentor classes with students who speak
Spanish as their primary language.
The Adopt-A-Pilot program incorporates educational activities
and curriculum for science, math, geography, writing, and other
subjects to help students discover more than just how an airplane
flies. The community relations program also demonstrates how
education is critical in reaching one's personal goals.
Adopt-A-Pilot has more than 450 Southwest Airlines Pilots who
volunteer for "adoption," all going above and beyond to provide fun
classroom activities that also make learning fun.
Pilots might ask their plane full of passengers to write notes
of motivation and encouragement to their students. Some e-mail
digital snapshots of a toy as it travels with the Pilot to various
U.S. cities, including related geography questions as clues.
During the four-week mentorship program, Pilots volunteer their
time in adoptive classrooms and correspond from the "road" via
e-mail and postcards. Classrooms chart the Pilot's course through
an official U.S. route map, and the students record daily flying
statistics sent by their pilot in the provided Adopt-A-Pilot
curriculum.
"We couldn't be more
impressed by the personal commitment of these Southwest Airlines
Pilots who want to make a difference. We hear from teachers that
many students have gained increased self-esteem and determination
for future careers as a result of the Adopt-A-Pilot program," says
Greg Crum, vice president of flight operations for Southwest
Airlines. "At a time when all airlines are cost-conscious,
Southwest has continued to advocate and increase support for this
worthwhile program."
Also new this year, Adopt-A-Pilot students can log onto www.southwest.com/adoptapilot
and take a virtual tour of a Boeing 737 cockpit, "visit"
Southwest's headquarters in Dallas, Texas, and view streaming video
segments that describe aviation careers.
Reinforcing its school-to-career theme, Adopt-A-Pilot includes a
national contest -- "What's Your Destination?" -- where classes are
invited to script, direct, perform, and produce their own
three-minute video depicting careers each student hopes to one day
pursue. The winning class will earn an educational field trip to a
nearby Southwest destination.
Since it began in 1997, the Adopt-A-Pilot program has reached
more than 65,000 students in communities from coast-to-coast.
Southwest Airlines originally developed the Adopt-A-Pilot program
in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Education, America's
Promise, the Smithsonian Institute's National Air and Space Museum,
and others in response to the need for community involvement in
schools. National leaders such as Secretary of State Colin Powell,
former President Bill Clinton, and First Lady Laura Bush have
recognized the community relations program.
The nation's largest carrier in terms of domestic Customer
boardings, (through September 2003 - the latest data available),
Southwest Airlines serves 59 airports in 58 cities in 30 states.
The airline currently has more than 4,000 Pilots and operates
nearly 2,800 flights a day.