STEM Teachers Experience Flight, Take Lessons To Their Classrooms

Twelve teachers responsible for instruction in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) recently took part in a Leaders Take Flight workshop at Alexandria Field airport in New Jersey. A Garrett A. Morgan Technology and Transportation Education Program (GAMTTEP) grant awarded by the US Department of Transportation (USDOT) provided the scholarships for the participants to attend the two-day program.  Developed by Take Flight Solutions, the workshop is one of twenty aviation-themed programs in a demonstration project designed to expand the role of a general aviation airport into a living laboratory and local educational resource for the community.

Sue Stafford, Linda Castner Demostrate Three-Axis Theory With A Wheelbarrow

During the intensive program, the dozen female teachers immersed themselves in general aviation.  Through a carefully designed series of experiential exercises, they were guided through the process of learning to fly an airplane.  The flight experience itself, consisting of one hour at the controls and one hour observing from the back seat of a small airplane, was used as a source of new metaphors for the participants to enhance classroom teaching of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).  Moreover, the aviation metaphors fostered new and deeper understanding, allowing participants to view the challenges in their professional lives through the lens of aviation. 

Several schools throughout the region were represented at the workshop: Rutgers University, Hunterdon Central Regional High School, Raritan Valley Community College, Delaware Valley Regional High School, Hunterdon County Polytech, and Alexandria Township Middle School. Participants were guided through numerous exercises by a team of five facilitators from NJ, MA, AL, and ID, including program creators and pilots Linda Castner and Sue Stafford.

Christine Zardecki, who teaches in the Rutgers Department of Chemistry and Biology, summed up the experience for the group: “It was AMAZING.” The next workshop in this project is scheduled for August 2011 with female high school students as the participants.

FMI: www.alexandriafield.com/Announcementofgrantaward/index.html, www.leaderstakeflight.com