MAAA Wingspan

24 WING SPAN NOVEMBER I George Atkinson is the chief flight instructor for Aeromodellers NSW. Over an impressive twenty-year period, he has taught a broad demographic of budding pilots tomaster aircraft of all kinds. We spoke to him about attracting students to the sport of aeromodelling and how best tomaintain interest in aviation for the next generation. What’s it like introducing aeromodelling into schools? The school curriculum is packed withmaterial that educators must cover in their teaching hours. So when we approach a school or better still, we get invited to discuss what is possible, we know that the school has either a teacher or a principal that is curious about aeromodelling, has heard about another school success story or is an aeromodeller themselves- either past or present. My approach is to collaborate with educators and understand what they want to achieve with their students. With that established, we can then work out the best program to satisfy their needs. Usually once they discover howmany elements of Science Technology Engineering and Maths (STEM) are involved in our sport, they soon appreciate the value of aeromodelling in a whole new way. Our course often becomes an extracurricular activity-an after school sport activity endorsed and supported by the school. What we give them is a teaching platform that brings to them the latest approach to this new technology. Inmy experience it’s far easier to work with someone in the school who wants to explore the learning possibilities than it is to take a pre-packaged program. My approach is to ask investigative questions that soon show what they are looking for and at what level. Keeping the training experiencemodular, you can decide where you are starting fromand where you will go to in the program that you design. And when you add our program to an existing STEM program, then it takes the technical into the real application. Everyone likes that outcome, where we bring aerodynamics, engineering [and] avionics to life. How should we get more schools involved and interested in aeromodelling? It is all about adding value to the school curriculumand supporting educators in their pursuit of learning outcomes for their students. Our range of learning, from the theoretical to the practical, is a valuable exchange where students can do activities like building, then flying amodel. The best is to get invited. The other way is to be able to have a school that becomes a success story and then there is an opportunity to share the value and experience of those students with other schools. There is also a strong need to demystify the complexity of the sport and speak to educators as the guide is how we get welcomed into schools. How we help themadd richness to their teaching experience and give students an introduction to the sport is where it starts. TEACHING THE NEXT GENERATION OF ENTHUSIASTIC AEROMODELLERS management matters: AEROMODELLING PROGRAMS IN SCHOOLS