OshKosh AirVenture 2021

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It is hard to believe this year’s event is already over! It seemed like more people attended than ever before! There were more airplanes, more campers, more fun for everyone! After missing last year, everyone seemed so thrilled to be at AirVenture. We had a great time! Loved the opportunity to see old friends and make some new ones! Highlights included a forum with Barbara Roberts Phillips and Susan Mallet on Monday, Women Venture Power Lunch on Wednesday, NASA forum with a panel of Women Rocket Scientists working on the Artemis Project along with astronaut Cady Coleman and Teacher Day on Friday. I will be sharing more about each of these and more in the upcoming posts. I hope you will come back and visit often. If you follow this blog, you will receive email notifications when a post goes live.

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CAP Resources for Teachers

Susan Reehl Broderick Mallet, CAP STEM Education Outreach Director,  shared with us about the many resources available for teachers.

If you have never heard about Civil Air Patrol, an auxiliary branch of the United States Air Force, this post is going to be the best news you’ve had in a long time!

On the CAP website, there are many resources available for download to use in your classroom. This Geoboat lesson is just one sample and can easily be adjusted to whatever grade level you teach. I had middle schoolers in study hall begging me to let them do this activity!

Teachers are invited to join CAP as an Aerospace Education Member. There is no requirement to attend meetings, and  membership is very reasonable. For those who become AEM members, the following resources are available for you to use in your classroom free of charge. You won’t even pay the postage to have these resources mailed to you!

The Aerospace Connections in Education (ACE) Program is a free, hands-on, fun and engaging Aerospace/STEM Education program for teachers who teach in grades K-6. Each kit contains 20 grade-specific lesson plans and the manipulatives related to those lessons.

Civil Air Patrol Stem Kit Program allows teachers to select a STEM Kit of their choice which they will use for a minimum of 6 hours in the classroom. After a brief evaluation of the kit, teachers may then order their next kit.

For a list of additional educational materials which can be ordered for use in the classroom, visit CAP Aerospace Education Curriculum Materials. There are resources here for grade levels K-12 and can be utilized by teachers of all subjects.

I hope you will take some time to explore the CAP website and check-out the resources available to you as a teacher to enhance your STEM education in your lessons.

 

 

OshKosh AirVenture, Part 3

Space Capsule Egg Drop Challenge

In honor of the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11’s mission, Barbara included a station to create a capsule for an egg which would be launched from the balcony of the museum.

Materials:  Eggs, balloons, tape, string, bubble wrap, coffee filters, plastic table cloth (or 2), garbage bag, cotton balls, small paper plates foam, or any other padding materials you might have on hand.

Challenge: Create a capsule that will protect an egg that is dropped from the balcony.

Procedure: Provide materials for each team and allow them 15-20 minutes to create their capsule. On the floor where the egg capsules will land, lay out a plastic tablecloth that is mark with a big X in the middle. Allow one team to drop their egg at a time.  The team that gets closest to the X without breaking their egg wins the challenge.

Lesson Plan links:

• STEM for Kids: Egg Drop Project
• Egg Drop Challenge: An engineering based science project
• Egg Drop Challenge Lesson Plan & Class Presentation Assignment
• Egg Drop Experiment Lesson Plan

Coming Next: CAP Resources for Teachers

OshKosh AirVenture 2019, Part 2

Balloon powered car challenge

Barbara also shared with us how to make a balloon powered car. Several of the forum participants had a great time with this project!

Materials: balloons, straws, empty water bottle, wooden skewers 4 water bottle lids, tape,

Challenge: Build a balloon-powered rocket car.

Procedure: Divide the class into teams of 3 or 4 students. Have one  student in each group collect the materials.  Allow students 15 -20 minutes to build their cars. Have students blow up the balloons and hold on the starting line. The team with the car that travels the farthest distance wins.

 

Lesson Plan links:

Engineering Project: Balloon Car

Balloon Powered Car

Balloon Powered Car Lesson Plan

Rocket Races

How to Make a Balloon Rocket Car

Coming Next: Space Capsule Egg Drop Challenge

OshKosh AirVenture 2019

It had been my hope and plan to make a post each day while at AirVenture this year. Unfortunately, WIFI was not reliable or readily available for the task, so my apologies to those who have been looking for the new material! If you are new to my blog, welcome! My goal is to provide you with abundant resources for sharing your passion for aviation with your students.

For the next several weeks, I will be posting about my experiences at AirVenture 2019.

Barbara Walters-Phillips

I attended a forum at the museum led by Barbara Walters-Phillips who is a regular presenter at AirVenture. Barbara is the STEM coach at Rosemont Elementary in Orlando, FL President of EAA Chapter 74 and the Orlando Youth Aviation Center where she teaches students aviation on Saturday mornings. Barbara has received the Scott Crossfield Aerospace Educator of the Year Award in 1994 and the Christa McAuliffe Outstanding Aerospace Educator in 1995. She is a private pilot with a passion for sharing aviation with students and teachers.

Barbara always comes with a bunch of hands-on activities which you can take home and use with your students with very little time or money. The activities she shared with us are also easily adapted to the age and ability of your students. Below are the activities she shared with us as well as some links to lesson plans to help you utilize them with various age groups.

Build a Tower: Pilots need to be able to identify and know where tall towers are, so that they can avoid them.

Materials: small marshmallows, several sizes of wooden skewers

Challenge: Build the tallest tower

Procedure: Divide the class into teams of 3 or 4 students. Allow students to choose their materials. Allow students 10 -15 minutes to build their towers. Measure towers to see which team achieved at least 24 inches. Team with the tallest free-standing tower wins.

Alternatives: Use small Dixi cups. Give each team a sleeve of 36 cups to build their tower; Use spaghetti instead of skewers.

Lesson Plan links:

• The Marshmallow Challenge Instructions – Junior Achievement
• STEM Challenge of the Month: Marshmallow Tower – STEM Like a Girl
• NGSS Engineering in the Classroom | NASA/JPL Edu
• Fourth grade Lesson The Marshmallow Challenge

 

Coming Next: Balloon powered car challenge.

 

Career Resources for Labor Day

It was my hope to have this post out in time for you to use these lessons as part of your instruction about Labor Day… Better late than never, right?

I heard over and over again at Oshkosh AirVenture forums that there are all kinds of jobs available in the STEM fields. Aerospace careers are so much more than pilots and astronauts.  I have compiled some resources that you will be able to use with your

Civil Air Patrol provides career lessons and resources for students in all grades.

students to help them see that the sky is the limit as far as great jobs that pay well. The professionals who shared at Oshkosh forums told us their jobs were a blast!  They love their jobs!  What more could anyone ask?  It is definitely not too early to help you motivate your students to reach for the stars as they plan their careers.

Astronaut Frank Borman shared at our Teacher Day  event that he got interested in aviation when as a 5-year-old he took a ride with a barnstormer.  That set the course for a career as an astronaut in the Apollo program.  As educators, we do not know what experience will have that kind of impact on the life of a child. The sky is the limit!

The resources below are not exhaustive. I hope you will find some that are useful and I hope you will pass  the information on to other teachers in your school.

Civil Air Patrol  is a great place to find all kinds of career  information for your students. My favorite elementary  activity is a coloring book called Fun in Flight that highlights over twenty important aerospace careers and helps students identify subject area skills needed for each of these careers. High School and Middle Schools teachers can have their students explore careers on webpages designed just for them.

 

The National Weather Service has career information about the following careers:  Meteorology, Hydrology, Physical Science, Information Technology and Electronics Maintenance,   Careers in Operational Support

The FAA has information about the following career fields:  Air Traffic Control Specialists · Technical Operations Specialists · Aviation Safety Inspectors · Engineers · Contract Specialists and more!

You will find more information than you can ever use about aviation and aerospace careers at the Vocational Information Center. Want information about other careers?  Just click on the Career Paths link.  There are links to all sorts of resources on this site for teachers, guidance counselors and students on this site.

The U.S. Department of Labor has some great videos that older students might enjoy exploring as they consider what their future holds.

Why is important to help students explore career opportunities?  Students who have a clear career goal will work toward that end. When students know there is a reason for their learning and hard work, they will be more excited about learning. Students who are career-minded will be less likely to be sucked into peer pressure and self-destructive activities.

Happy Labor Day!

 

NOAA Resources for Classroom Teachers

My excitement continues to grow as I have been reviewing websites and information that I brought home with me from Oshkosh AirVenture to share with you on this blog. I have been using aviation themed lessons in the classroom for years, and I love exploring new ways to use aerospace education with kids and with teachers. As a substitute teacher, though, I have fewer opportunities to share my love of aviation with students, so I am excited about this blog! It gives me a platform to share some pretty awesome materials and resources that other teachers will be able to easily employ in their classrooms. At least that is my hope.

I think the resources alone will excite many teachers, especially if these sites and organizations are new to you. I am excited to get as many of these resources in your hands, and will later share some thoughts about why you should want to use them.

Today’s resource is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. With NOAA’s Data in the Classroom, students use real-time ocean data to explore today’s most pressing environmental issues, and develop problem-solving skills employed by scientists. Access online and classroom-ready curriculum activities with a scaled approach to learning and easy-to-use data exploration tools.

Teachers will find resources for themselves and for their students to help them learn about weather science and safety with Owlie Skywarn.

 

Here is an example of a great book about clouds which could be used with elementary students–just one of the many resources to be found at the NOAA website.

Doing a lesson about careers for Labor Day?  You’ll find some resources on Owlie’s page, and I’ll be posting some other great sites to help you demonstrate to students that it is not too soon for them to explore careers.  STEM careers are greatly in need of qualified, skilled workers. These are not only high paying jobs, but they are exciting and fun careers!

Happy exploring!  If you are interested in learning  more, please add a comment.

P.S.   Want to talk with your students about Hurricane Harvey and the flooding in Texas?  Check out the student booklets that you could print our for your class.

Owlie Skywarn Storms Ahead	Owlie Skywarn Floods Ahead	Owlie Skywarn Hurricanes Ahead	Owlie Skywarn Lightning Ahead
Owlie Skywarn Winter Storms Ahead	Owlie Skywarn Tornadoes Ahead

 

 

 

 

Resources at The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum for Teachers

You will find some excellent resources for adding STEM lessons to your curriculum at The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum website. Materials are available at all grade levels as well as professional development. You will want to explore this website, but be prepared to spend some time because even a brief tour will pull you in and you will want to explore more and more!

Want a quick, easy, and inexpensive lesson to get you started?  Click the link to go straight to this hands on activity to  Create Your Own Paper Airplane.

Want to really get your students jazzed about aviation/aerospace? Schedule a field trip to the National Air and Space Museum!

Civil Air Patrol Tools for Teachers

I wanted to share with you about the NASA website in my first post for this blog because of the upcoming total eclipse. I knew that once you got to the NASA site, you would find all kinds of resources for you to use in your class this year. No matter the subject or grade level you teach, I know that you will find resources there that will enhance your teaching this year.

I am so excited to share with you about my next resource that I could hardly wait!  If you have never heard about Civil Air Patrol, an auxiliary branch of the United States Air Force, this post is going to be the best news you’ve had in a long time!

A representative of CAP shared with the teachers who attended Teachers’ Day at Oshkosh Air Venture an overview of the resources CAP has to offer them.  On the CAP website, there are many resources available for download to use in your classroom. This Geoboat lesson is just one sample and can easily be adjusted to whatever grade level you teach.

Teachers are invited to join CAP as an Aerospace Education Member. There is no requirement to attend meetings, and  membership is very reasonable. For those who become AEM members, the following resources are available for you to use in your classroom free of charge. You won’t even pay the postage to have these resources mailed to you!

The Aerospace Connections in Education (ACE) Program is a free, hands-on, fun and engaging Aerospace/STEM Education program for teachers who teach in grades K-6. Each kit contains 20 grade-specific lesson plans and the manipulatives related to those lessons.

Civil Air Patrol Stem Kit Program allows teachers to select a STEM Kit of their choice which they will use for a minimum of 6 hours in the classroom. After a brief evaluation of the kit, teachers may then order their next kit.

For a list of additional educational materials which can be ordered for use in the classroom, visit CAP Aerospace Education Curriculum Materials. There are resources here for grade levels K-12 and can be utilized by teachers of all subjects.

I hope you will take some time to explore the CAP website and check-out the resources available to you as a teacher to enhance your STEM education in your lessons.

 

 

Oshkosh AirVenture 2017

 

If you have never heard of Oshkosh AirVenture, it is a weeklong event for aviation enthusiasts. There are daily air shows, informative seminars, and vendors of all sorts all there to celebrate aviation.  As an educator, I enjoy attending the forums that are provided for teachers and I also enjoy the opportunity to participate in Teacher’s Day, an event set aside for teachers to experience Oshkosh and to learn ways to encourage and motivate their students with STEM activities related to the field of aviation and aerospace.

There is no place I have ever been where I could find so many freely available resources for teachers!  Although many vendors attend in order to sell you their latest stuff, there are also many vendors who are there to educate and motivate people to explore all that is available in the field of aviation.

I wanted to be able to share the exciting resources that are available to teachers to add to or to supplement your current curriculum. This blog will enable me to reach a greater number of educators with all that is available to them, so if you like what you see here, I hope you will do two things:  add to the discussions and share with your teacher friends!

My favorite forum this year was the forum presented by NASA about the upcoming total eclipse. The presenter shared safe viewing methods, information about how NASA is going to share the event on their website, materials for educators to use in the classroom, an interactive map of where and how to get the best view of the eclipse, and even a pair of safe viewing glasses!  I hope you will check out the NASA site, and even if your school does not begin until after August 21, I hope you will take advantage of this once in a century event to teach science in the real world concepts in your classroom.

NASA has so many resources for teachers and students (K-12), both online and printable. Check it out!

  https://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/index.html