I grew up on a residential airpark. When I dust off the cobwebs from near 50-year-old memories, I see a hangar with our Piper Comanche and Cessna 150 inside.
That background gave me a firm understanding of the benefits of aviation. I recall being amazed when I learned that not all of my elementary school friends had a hangar with airplanes in their yard. It was a rather rude awakening.
For that reason, I found a recently published paper on using aviation-themed activity for pre-school kids of interest.
Linda Castner from Up, Up, and Away in Hunterdon (UUAH), Rich Stowell from Rich Stowell Consulting, and Ronke Olabisi from Rutgers University published the paper titled, “Results from an Aviation-Themed Pilot Project Designed to Improve Executive Function Skills and Increase Transportation Career Awareness” in November 2019.
“The paper chronicles the 22-month pilot project, including results and lessons learned from two classes of preschoolers who engaged in an aviation-themed learning experience with physical and spatial challenges, aviation terminology, and related training aids,” stated a press release sent me by Stowell.
What came naturally to me, being raised on an airport, is not so natural to the average 3 to 5 year old. Go figure.
But anyone who has been around a typical preschooler knows they can be sponges that suck up anything they are exposed to. Good or bad. We might as well make it good. Airplane good.
The pilot project used a program created by Castner called “Learn to Fly with Katie Doo.”
Using a pedal-plane, a tricycle, and an airport with a control tower and windsock, UUAH created the curriculum and assessment tools to test the hypothesis “Can general aviation airports increase their long-term value to their communities through programs that feature careers in transportation? In this case, by partnering with preschools to deliver an aviation-themed program that is designed to improve executive function skills and career awareness in students.”
Spoiler alert and short answer: Yes.
“Students who pedaled the tricycle around the pattern were ranked from 44% to 59% higher on executive functions by their teachers than students who did not complete a physical challenge,” the researchers said in the paper. “The teachers ranked students who pedaled the plane 22% to 23% higher on executive functions than those who only pedaled the tricycle. Compared to students who did not complete a physical challenge, students who pedaled the plane scored from 78% to 94% higher on executive functions.”
So far, so good, and while executive functions are vital, many different educational programs can no doubt be used in improve those skills.
Selfishly, we want to create a massive crop of future aviators, maintenance professionals, controllers, builders and more.
“And compared to students who did not complete a physical challenge pedaling around the pattern, students who pedaled the plane were 125% more aware of aviation careers. Katie Doo appears to have had a positive effect on improving career awareness.”
Exposure to activities that use aviation dramatically increases the number of preschoolers who are aware of aviation.
Maybe that’s why so many kids say they want to be a firefighter or a police officer. The local fire department rolls up to a school with a big shiny fire truck, plops kids in the front seat, turns on the lights, gives them a firefighter sticker and a hat and the kid goes home wanting to be a firefighter.
Well, why not with airplanes?
Bravo to Linda, Rich, and Ronke for the program and the paper.
“Teachers saw students with low executive functions improve their performance as a result of the Katie Doo experience,” the researchers reported. “Parents also gave positive feedback to school administrators.”
That’s encouragement enough for the program to continue in the current school year.
So, how young is too young? The program showed 4- and 5-year-olds benefitted most. The 3-year-olds were a bit too young.
Seems that for a relatively modest investment, airports all over the country could work with area preschools to cultivate a crop of future pilots, controllers, maintainers, and airport managers. You know, hook ‘em while they’re young.
If you’d like to learn more, you can contact Linda Castner at 908-735-0870.
Located at the second oldest continuously operating airfield in the US, Historic Pearson Field (KVUO), the Pearson Field Education Center (www.pearsonfieldeducation.org/) and its predecessor organization, have provided these types of experiences for thousands of young people in this age cohort over the last decade.
Director Michelle Marra (www.pearsonfieldeducation.org/about/staff/), staff, and volunteers ranging from teens to retirees provide hands on learning experiences, camps, field trips and special events for youth from age K and up.
Learn more about their programs and strategic plan at: http://www.pearsonfieldeducation.org/about/.
Give Michelle a call or drop by and see for yourself. They are always looking for individuals wanting to make a difference in whatever way they can, whether with time, talent, or treasure.
Check out their facebook page (www.facebook.com/PearsonFieldEducationCenter/) including upcoming age appropriate events like this: https://www.facebook.com/events/824921907978593/
Our Emily Warner Field Aviation Museum host an annual Airport & Aviation History Adventures, free Open House, for families and pre-school/Day Care programs. Volunteer pilots allow children, parents and students to sit in the airplane. We take digital photographs for them to have to see themselves in the airplane. We have costumes for the children to put on for aircraft mechanic with a toy screw gun and airplanes which can be assembled. we have a large photo mount with large letters Future Aircraft Mechanic which makes a great digital memory. We sent the children home with pages of airplanes to color, Future Pilot stickers and encourage the teachers and parents to borrow our many donated aviation and space children’s books from our large lending library.
The EAA, Experimental Aircraft Assoc., has a program to fly kids, 8 to 17, called ‘Young Eagles’.
Local EAA chapters organize pilots and aircraft to fly them for a 20 minute flight…at no cost.
Our EAA chapter 1541, at Lincoln, CA, KLHM, flies 75 kids twice a year. Most parents have never been in a ‘small’ aircraft before, so we put them in the back seat to experience flying along with their child.
Check for a local EAA chapter that does Young Eagles flights.
https://www.eaa.org/eaa/youth/free-ye-flights
I think that was one of my son’s best days of his life. We drove quit a distance for the Young Eagles event and my son was placed in an RV4 painted up in a Mustang scheme. That was icing on the cake! I can remember seeing just the top of his head as they took off. When got back he was on cloud nine, and he was so excited because the pilot let him move the stick to make a turn. I guess all of his time in FS2004 paid off after all. The pilot has no idea how much he contributed to my son’s interest to become a pilot. Let’s not forget they also have Eagles for adults too!
I have used my mobile flight stations to expose aviation to kids at day cares, and “Learn to Fly” days at the local museum for the past several years. I’ve had kids sit at the controls as young as five and let them bounce off the ground over and over again and they didn’t care, but he smile on their faces made the chore of packing and unpacking the Caravan, or trailer, dragging everything down the narrow hall ways and setting them up worth while. And I’m not even a pilot! Just a wanna be. My son started when he was old enough to sit at he kitchen table on his own and use the rudder pedals, on boxes made by my neighbor, to raise them high enough for him to reach, and yoke to fly FS 2004. I’ll never be a pilot but he will. He’s been in CAP since 12, and has earned a scholarship to get his pilot’s license.
I remember my Grandfather taking me to visit our local airport (Torrance Airport/Zamperini Field-KTOA), CA, back when I was about 2 or 3. I’m 47 now. That sense of fascination/wonder is STILL there.
We didn’t have fences around the airfield when I was a kid. It was always fun to visit back then with my parents. We could walk up to an airplane and admire it.