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Airmen learn teaching technique that will help spark children’s interest in aviation

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Aaron Oelrich
  • 15th Wing Public Affairs
JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii --  Airmen learned teaching techniques that will help spark children's interest in aviation at the Civil Air Patrol's aerospace education member training here April 29.

The training, a joint effort between the Headquarters Pacific Command Equal Opportunity office and the Hawaii Civilian Air Patrol, is designed to take Airmen's passion for aviation and spread it to today's youth as part of a diversity and inclusion initiative.

"The goal is to get a wider variety of people to look at the Air Force and aerospace as a career," said Nick Ham, deputy chief of staff for aerospace education for the pacific region of the Civil Air Patrol. "I think this is vital to keeping strong aviation and aerospace programs."

The Airmen who attended the training, which introduce them to basic teaching techniques giving them the skills to teach elementary school students, will become aerospace education members for the CAP.

They also got hands-on experience with several different activities, one of which was a straw rocket that the Airmen created for a competition to see who could make it travel the farthest.

"Activities like the straw rocket are designed to capture children's attention and allow [the Aerospace education member] the opportunity to teach the importance of science, technology, engineering and math to the children in a fun way," said Ham.

According to Glenn Medeiros, director of education for the Hawaii CAP,  becoming an aerospace education member for the CAP will give the Airmen access to 450 classroom projects,  which are nationally certified for curriculums ranging from math to sciences, engineering and history.

Medeiros said that training military members to become aerospace education members who can take these projects into the local classrooms will expand the CAP outreach to the community and spark an interest in the next generation of aviators.