matt

Well Known Member
I am supposed to give a short presentation at my son?s school (age 10-12) about experimental/small airplanes in about a week. Not so much about the building process such as (small) airplanes in general. I will have a projector available so I could show some nice pics etc but does anyone have a few ideas or maybe even a presentation they used before?

When they asked me I thought it was a great idea but right now I am stumbling over what to include and how to present it! How do I make airplanes look "cool" and interesting to kids at this age?? And even if a short presentation is a good start I find kids this age to be very "hands on", how could I provide that??
 
Kids & videos definitely get along.

Show 'em Rudy's videos!

Then I'd show 'em some of the other flying videos out there.

Then I'd coordinate a formation fly-by... :D
 
Learning styles

Sounds like a great time! Here are a few hints that I can think of:

You probably already know this, but keep in mind that people have three major learning styles - tactile/physical, visual, and auditory.

If you use pictures or video, try to include some of a kid or kids of about the same age or a bit older. This will help the audience relate.

Depending on how much time you have, you might want to get the class to build a paper airplane. Here's an example (click on the image for more details):



Be sure to bring some good paper for all the kids!

You might want to see if someone like Sporty's would donate some of those very small, thin logbooks, and give one to each kid.

Have fun!
 
include science

may be too young for the group to be interested, but every aspect of science is employed in aircraft- - fluid dynamics, physics, combustion, metallurgy, electricity, chemistry. and they don't get that stuff in school any more. maybe some basics? help convince them that math is actually important?