AE activities that seem to hit home with cadets

Started by ascorbate, August 14, 2009, 04:01:43 PM

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

ascorbate

In planning aerospace education activities at the squadron level, I often find myself seeking input from cadets to see what really interests them. One of the things I hear most often is to make the AE activitiy competitive. In my experience, if you make it competitive, the cadets will also find the activity fun and memorable! With that said, I would like to share some of the AE activities that have seem to hit home with cadets versus sitting the cadets down in an AE classroom and lecturing at them.

First of all, I enrolled our squadron in the Aerospace Education Excellence program as administered by CAPNHQ as noted at: http://www.capmembers.com/aerospace_education/internal_specific/index.cfm.

Next, from the lessons presented in AEX II (Volume I and II), I then crafted ways of taking a particular lesson and setting up some type of competition, either on an individual basis or as part of competitive teams (the teams have an equal mix of cadets from all ranks so that it is never cadet officers versus the NCO corps). Unfortunately, the lesson plans tend to focus on a particular AE task which cadets may or may not take an interest in... but pit them against each other in a friendly competition... and just sit back and let the AE event unfold. Often times, the senior officers involved have just much fun as the cadets do!

Concrete examples:

Ring Wing (Volume 2, Activity Eleven) - allow individual cadets to build a ring wing and then line them up from a common starting point to see who can fly the furthest... and then the closest to a simulated runway environment all while emphasizing the principles of aerodynamics, lift and the four forces of flight

Lost on the Moon (Volume 1, Activity Ten) - divide cadets equally into 2 teams and allow them to prioritize the given survival items and then award/subtract points for the team that ranks each of the 15 survival items the closest to NASA's ranking

Back to the Basics – Paper Airplanes (Volume 1, Activity 6) - allow individual cadets to craft a paper airplane of their choosing and then line them up from a common starting point to see who can fly the furthest... and then the closest to a simulated runway environment all while emphasizing the principles of aerodynamics, lift and the four forces of flight

Pop Bottle Rockets (Volume I, Activity 20) - divide cadets equally into teams giving each team two 2-liter soda pop bottles (one empty and a second one filled to the brim with tap water). Allow the teams to determine the optimal mix of water (water to air ratio) to pour into the empty 2 liter soda pop bottle which will yield the highest altitude when launched under pressure using an air pump. Next, add a written component to the competition (taking examples from the history of rocketry like "who is the father of modern rocketry") by giving 3-4 multiple choice questions (with a pre-determined point value) along with an open ended fill in the blank tie-breaker question.

The last exercise (Pop bottle rockets) was an activity that I presented at the recent MD-DE Wing encampment and one wouldn't believe the inter-squadron "hooping and hollering" that went on leading up to the launch of each of the individual team's pop bottle rocket(s)... talk about camaraderie and esprit de corps!

I guess all of this is to say that we as AEOs should try to minimize didactic classroom lectures in favor of maximizing AE activities that cadets find competitive, fun and stimulating... and then please take the time to share it with all our fellow AEOs because I'm running short on ideas!

http://members.gocivilairpatrol.com/news/cap_news_online/index.cfm/md_cadets_explore_aerodynamics_by_builidng_launching_model_planes?show=news&newsID=5727

Dr. Mark A. Kukucka, Lt Col, CAP
Missions Directorate (A7), MD-001
Carl A. Spaatz Award #569
Gill Robb Wilson Award #3004


Chicago_Pilot

Thank you for posting information about this program.  I'd like to see a lot more interaction in CAP presentations (both Senior and Cadet).  I'll look into whether our unit is willing to get involved.