New Comers
Bob Underwood Box 40, St. Peters, MO 63376
Introduction
This month's New Comers column comes from Dr. Gordon Schimmel, Superintendent of Schools in Storrs, Connecticut. Note how his enthusiasm for promoting modeling activities for youth shines through.
Dr. Schimmel is currently involved with a summer technology program for youth in his area. He has also worked diligently to compile programs being presented around the country. His catalog of programs will provide valuable resource material for others who want to become involved. The modest effort of providing these materials through this column has already prompted considerable interest.
Academy initiatives
The Academy is engaged in several arenas designed to promote newcomer activity:
- Identification of available programs (and their cataloging) as indicated in this article.
- Development of an interactive television program format through Ball State University that will utilize the National Flying Site as a base for classroom activities on a multi-site level.
- Providing week-long workshops at Muncie for selected age groups. Hopefully these will start as early as 1996.
- Incorporation of some existing programs into an overall format.
- Funding support: the Academy recently funded a program called YES (Youth Education Stipend) designed to provide funds to chartered clubs or chapters that wish to establish a program in their community. Please contact me for details.
This column will wear its other hat next month and will look at some more newcomer building "stuff."
Just imagine
Just imagine a science classroom where the smell of balsa is in the air. Imagine students applying concepts related to the forces of flight, center of gravity, and experimental variables to construct their own flying models. Imagine students having the opportunity to write about these experiences in language arts classes, or to work on scale drawings of their model as part of a math class. These activities are going on right now as part of Ferrario's Flying Physics at Redwood Middle School in Napa, California.
Most of us grew up in an era when these activities were related to after-school programs. Today's teachers are looking for opportunities to engage students in hands-on activities to reinforce academics in the classroom. Once the basic reading, writing, and arithmetic skills are learned, teachers need activities that apply these skills in ways that are exciting and meaningful to students. Model aviation offers numerous opportunities to help bring math and science concepts to life.
Ferrario's Flying Physics
Rocco Ferrario is a seventh-grade teacher with almost ten years of experience integrating model-airplane construction into middle-school science classes. His work led him to design an all-balsa rubber-powered "stick" model by combining the best features of several designs he found in back issues of Model Aviation. In time, the students' enthusiasm convinced other teachers to incorporate some of Mr. Ferrario's ideas into language-arts and math classrooms.
Eventually Mr. Ferrario was honored with Napa Valley's Teacher of the Year award for his work and enthusiasm. He now shares these units through workshops, providing colleagues in several California schools with balsa models to help them run their own programs. He also runs a four-week summer camp at Napa Valley Community College.
Clearinghouse for classroom support
Bob Underwood asked me to write this column to promote a structured information exchange between classroom teachers and members of the model aviation community. We wish to announce the establishment of a clearinghouse for this information. We believe that Rocco Ferrario is not the only teacher who has incorporated these activities to accomplish academic objectives. We're confident that many members in the 2,300 AMA-affiliated clubs would be willing to help teachers with these activities.
Building flyable model aircraft is an activity that lends itself to a wide variety of curricular concepts. Most importantly, it gives students a chance to demonstrate their ability to solve problems and apply knowledge to new situations.
We propose a periodic feature for this magazine—an opportunity to promote these ideas and to identify those model clubs and members who are willing to spend a little time in the classroom helping teachers. We hope to provide a forum for an exchange of projects, eventually developing a master list of resources around the United States.
As our mailing list grows, we can expand our work to an electronic database, using e-mail or the Internet. Eventually, these activities could lead to a workshop in Muncie to promote model aviation as a motivational tool for middle- and high-school classrooms.
Our goal is to start small and let the individuals who participate define the scope of the effort. My club (the Northeastern Drone Society) produces a newsletter with information that many classroom teachers might find useful. We want to connect club talent with classroom teachers—many would welcome assistance on short, focused units matched with curriculum objectives. Most teachers are ready to accept assistance, but few have Mr. Ferrario's level of interest, membership, or resources.
AMA is in an ideal position to assist with this effort; the Academy has a long-standing interest in developing programs for young modelers. The Young Eagles program of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) and the Fly-A-Teacher program of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) make it possible for the AMA to leverage its impact on public school classrooms by linking with other organizations. Occasional articles in EAA and AOPA publications reflect a need to recruit more young people into the sport of aviation.
How the clearinghouse might work
We do not have all the answers. We imagine that AMA members who have already offered help building everything from kites to rockets would be willing to share ideas and respond to inquiries as teachers become aware of resources in local clubs. If you have worked with classroom teachers and are aware of specific model-building activities that have been successful in the classroom, we invite you to contact us.
We envision this effort as a grassroots project where people in local model aviation clubs contact local schools to see if a math or science teacher might be interested in developing an activity. Eventually, we expect to publish the best of these ideas so teachers and club members will have an opportunity to obtain classroom-tested activities.
Projects and resources
Excellent projects from back issues of Model Aviation can be identified to support the work. For example:
- Jim Haught's articles in the May and June 1994 issues offered building and flying tips to assist children in getting hand-launched gliders into the air. These and other articles are outstanding resources.
- The foam slope soarer "Floyd," featured in the July issue, was developed to encourage one-design racing but might be ideal for getting older students started in RC at a level most can afford. Such models can be excellent training platforms for students who need experience "on the sticks" before moving to more expensive and complicated models.
Has the definitive paper airplane been developed? How far have we come from the traditional classroom classic? Some members might have ideas to assist children in understanding symmetry, stability, and basic geometric shapes through such projects. Club members might help locate new and inexpensive indoor rubber-powered models for teachers with limited flying sites or unreliable weather. Simple, interesting control-line, rubber-powered, gas, or electric designs could be promoted for teachers who wish to pursue more sophisticated projects as time and student interest permit.
Call for participation
As we move toward the centennial of the Wright brothers' early experiments with model gliders at Kitty Hawk, we might reinvent engaging ways to interest students who have had few opportunities to learn design and construction techniques as part of classroom work. Join us in an effort that could culminate in some exciting new projects for public school classrooms. The adventure continues!
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
