Westby Middle School Educator Mary Beth Marx Helps Her Students Spread Their Wings

Those of us in aviation commonly ponder the issue of piquing the interest of young people in the joy, excitement, and gratification of being involved with aviation. Sometimes it seems like we’re beating our head against the wall, but here’s a story of a middle school educator stepping out to share her passion for aviation.

This story came to us from the Westby Times thanks to the editor, Dorothy Robson. The article published in their periodical said that educator Mary Beth Marx wanted to spread her passion for aviation to her students. The story tells us she already had students who were members of the Civil Air Patrol and these cadets became volunteers for Marx’s 7th grade students to participate in their own aerospace education field day. Also participating in the event was EAA chapter 1439 and a local radio controlled model airplane club.

According to the story, the all-day event was designed and coordinated by Marx, who spent hundreds of hours outside the classroom organizing every detail of the special day, which turned out to be a huge hit with volunteers, students and staff. The purpose of the day was to expose students to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) as it relates to the real-world and all things that fly.

The day began with an educational presentation about how to fly a hot air balloon. After the presentation, CAP squadron volunteers successfully inflated and tipped up the full-size hot air balloon on school grounds while students stood in amazement of its size.

Activities included balsa gliders and the science of flight; how to build your own plane complete with a sheet metal hands-on scale model for students to assist with; and miniature remote controlled planes that actually flew in the field house and operated under the same science and control surfaces as large-scale aircrafts.

The story goes on to describe dozens of other aviation activities that touched on everything from reading aviation charts to stepping into the cockpit of an F-16 Flight Simulator originally used by the Wisconsin Air National Guard to train their fighter pilots.

“The day was a tremendous success and a big thanks goes out to my Civil Air Patrol Squadron, EAA Chapter 1439, and friends from the local RC plane clubs. Without them this science field day could not have happened,” Marx said.

A total of 27 volunteers helped make this work and it’s an outstanding example of how one person’s motivation to use aviation as a tool to inspire young people to look beyond their own personal limitations can be a starting place in their journey to knowledge.

ANN congratulates all those involved in this worthy project.

(Image provided by the Westby Times)

FMI: www.lacrossetribune.com/westbytimes/