District II
Dave Mathewson, District II Vice President [email protected] New Jersey, New York, Europe
Could this be AMA's best-kept secret?
Recently I had the opportunity to sit in on a meeting of the AMA Education Committee.
The committee, chaired by Gordon Schimmel, a school administrator from the northeast United States, includes several dedicated AMA members from across the country. Also serving on the committee are AMA staff members Michael Smith, AMA Museum Director, and Jack Frost, AMA Education Director.
At this meeting, the committee was reviewing a list of current projects and developing the agenda for the coming year. Since one part of the committee’s mission is to promote model aviation as an educational tool in formal classroom settings, much of the time was spent discussing ways to assist classroom teachers who wish to integrate aerospace-education concepts into the classroom environment.
In addition to its efforts on this level, the committee creates programs targeted toward informal activities such as after-school programs, community activities, and summer-camp programs.
AMA Education Committee highlights
- Chair: Gordon Schimmel
- AMA staff: Michael Smith (AMA Museum Director), Jack Frost (AMA Education Director)
- Focus areas:
- Integrating aerospace education into formal classroom settings
- Creating programs for informal learning: after-school programs, community activities, summer camps
In late 2005, because of the work of our education department and this committee, AMA received a check for $100,000 from the Alcoa Foundation. The foundation funded an initial $28,000 “pilot project” as part of the Inventing Flight curriculum produced to celebrate the Wright brothers' centennial in 2003. Based on the success of that effort, the foundation subsequently awarded AMA a second grant for $128,000.
This latest grant brings the total support from the Alcoa Foundation to more than a quarter of a million dollars—funds AMA is successfully using to improve and refine activities using model airplanes as a teaching tool for middle-school physical science.
Many clubs in our district place significant emphasis on creating educational and training programs to reach younger members of our communities. The expertise of our education department and this committee is a membership benefit available to all members and clubs.
To learn more about AMA’s education programs:
- Visit: www.buildandfly.com
- Call: Jack Frost, AMA headquarters, (765) 287-1256, ext. 515
Personal notes
District II associate vice president Ray Juschkus ran into old friend Wally Kranz at the recent Whitman Flyers swap meet. Wally is 86 years old and, according to Ray, still flying whenever he can. Wally joined AMA in 1936 and flew FF for several years. When he returned from the service in 1945, he was bitten by the RC bug and has been flying RC since — that's more than 50 years. Wally's family came to this country from Switzerland and now calls Long Island home.
NEAT Fair 2005 — Ray Juschkus report
The NEAT Fair 2005 was held in Peaceful Valley, New York, September 16–18. With the threat of Hurricane Ophelia coming up the East Coast and concerns about flooding like the year before, members of the Silent Electric Flyers of Long Island (SEFLI) began to set up the field for the fifth edition of NEAT.
Event highlights:
- 245 pilots and 40 vendors preregistered
- Weather cooperated and we had four great flying days
- Ten-year-old Alfred Fusco logged the most flights at NEAT Fair 2005
- Friday and Saturday approximately 1,200 people came each day to see what electric flying was all about
- Saturday night flying under a full moon was a crowd favorite
One of the highlights for Ray was when U.S. Control Line Precision Aerobatics team member Bob Hunt flew his electric control-line stunt model — the model Bob will be competing with at the World Championships in Spain this summer. It was a flawless performance and hopefully an omen of things to come.
See you next time.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
