High School Teachers Can Help Teens Soar With Aviation, Aerospace

Some high school teachers are encouraging teens to reach new heights -- literally -- through aviation and aerospace education.

"Most kids have had the experience of flying in an aircraft and most people when they fly in an aircraft they feel one of two things," says Rebecca Vieyra, an Albert Einstein distinguished educator fellow at NASA and a former high school physics teacher.

They feel fear, but they also feel a sense of amazement -- Vieyra likes to call that combination of experiences awe. Teaching students about how flight occurs is a good way to grow their interest in science, technology, engineering and math topics, she says.

[Find out four places to look for aviation scholarships.]

Aeronautics is the science of aircraft. The term usually refers just to travel in the Earth's atmosphere and is pretty much synonymous with aviation, Vieyra says. Aerospace is a broader term that includes space travel.

High schoolers nationwide are exploring these topics. In Florida, for example, one high school recently revitalized its aviation and aerospace engineering magnet program. Students can practice flying on full-size flight simulators in the classroom.

"We are in a huge aviation hub here in central Florida," says Taylor Plumbee, administrative dean of magnet programs at Oak Ridge High School in Orlando. With job opportunities plentiful, it made sense for the school to enhance its program that prepares students to enter the industry.

In California, students at Vista High School are preparing to get their private pilot's license in an aviation program offered through the Air Force Junior ROTC, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

DuVal High School in Lanham, Maryland recently established an aerospace engineering and aviation technology program. Students in the program have shown a lot of interest, says Chris Kampsen, aeronautics instructor at the school. "They come to this classroom and they are engaged in hands-on projects. They are not just stuck in a seat."

In Alaska, a high schooler built a computerized flight simulator for his aviation elective class, the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman reported last week. It should allow students to better understand the sometimes abstract course work, especially for students who aren't also taking flying lessons, the report said.

[Read about how 3-D printing has become accessible for high school teachers.]

Flight simulators and flying lessons are great for contextualizing, but they aren't necessary for teaching students the science of flight. Not knowing how to fly an aircraft themselves should not discourage teachers from teaching aeronautics, Vieyra says.

She shared some of the many free resources and lessons from NASA for teachers to check out below.

-- Museum in a Box: A variety of lessons related to aeronautics are available for high school teachers to download on this website. Lessons focus on the history of flight, principles of flight, careers and more.

-- Flying Speed Activity: Students can use Google Maps and a plane tracker website to identify an actual airplane flying over the U.S. in this activity. Then, they can calculate the plane's speed using real time data, she says. Students can learn about flight speeds and directions of flights near take-off and landing -- when speed is variable and flights typically don't travel straight -- among other concepts. Before students begin this activity, they will need to know how to calculate speed.

-- Round Globe, Flat Map Project: This activity allows students to study geometry concepts and develop a basic understanding of map-making, Vieyra says. Part of the activity asks students to deconstruct an orange and push it flat to create a model of a flat map -- this activity allows students to learn about the global nature of air traffic and see how challenging it is to map a world with an increasingly complex and busy airspace.

More detailed instructions for both of these activities are available in NASA's Educators Resource Guide for the recently released film, "Living in the Age of Airplanes."

Have something of interest to share? Send your news to us at highschoolnotes@usnews.com.

Alexandra Pannoni is an education staff writer at U.S. News. You can follow her on Twitter or email her at apannoni@usnews.com.