AFA Teachers of the Year Collaborate on New Youth Aviation Camp 

The national network of AFA chapter, state, and national teachers of the year continues to expand with many teachers across the country working alongside each other to conduct and/or experience teacher state and national professional development programs.  

Two such teachers joined hands in July to showcase a unique collaborative initiative for students. The 2021 National AFA Teacher of the Year from Virginia, Megan Tucker, and the 2024 Illinois State Teacher of the Year, Jackie Blumer, implemented a new youth aviation camp in Hillsboro, Va., called “Discovering Flight.”   

Tucker, Virginia’s Hillsboro Charter Academy Dean of Curriculum and STEAM specialist, worked with the National Aviation Hall of Fame to test their new curriculum, “Discovering Flight: Problem Solving with Wilbur and Orville.” Created by the NAHF in collaboration with PBS Think TV and the Ohio Department of Education, this multidisciplinary curriculum focuses on the Wright brothers’ journey of perseverance and innovation, culminating in the first powered, controlled flight.  

Tucker and Blumer decided to turn the lessons in the curriculum into a free summer camp for upcoming 3rd graders at Tucker’s school. Tucker was awarded a hundred dollars from the NAHF for camp materials, and each student earned a camp “flight ticket” by writing an essay about their interest in aviation.  

The curriculum, focusing on the principles of flight and the history of the Wright brothers, was significant to Tucker because Susan Koerner Wright, the Wright brothers’ mother, was born in Hillsboro, her small town in Loudoun County. As planning for the camp evolved, Tucker said the community joined together to make the camp a success, from Hillsboro Mayor Roger Vance letting the students use the historic Old Stone School, to a walking tour through the town to learn the history of the Wright brothers, to the charter school’s board of directors donating makerspace materials.  

Adding to this support was the unique opportunity for a Loudon County graduate and current private pilot, Mia Anderson, to add the cornerstone event of the week — flights for the students from Leesburg Executive Airport.  

“Our entire community came together to support this camp,” Tucker said. “It’s just awesome to see aviation fascination bring everyone together, especially with the common mission to inspire our future generation of engineers and aviators.”  

The first days of this science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM) camp laid the groundwork on the path toward the campers’ flights on Friday. The campers checked the daily weather to learn about optimum flying conditions, measured wind force with a Beaufort Scale, and learned about windspeed, Bernoulli’s principle, and the phonetic alphabet. They had daily spelling, math, science, and history lessons; made and flew different types of paper airplanes to apply their engineering skills to determine which plane design flew the farthest; and even added a camper-led reader’s theater, complete with a “Wright bicycle,” emphasizing perseverance and a growth mindset inspired by the Wright brothers.  

Blumer, who is a seventh grade Earth/Space Science/STEM teacher at Greenville Junior High School in Greenville, Illinois, worked alongside Tucker during the camp, and said that one of her favorite parts of the curriculum was the problem-solving videos the campers viewed each day during snack time where they became invested in helping the characters in the videos solve the daily problems so they could fly.   

Additional educational materials were also provided by various esteemed aerospace education organizations with which Tucker and Blumer work, such as the Civil Air Patrol (CAP), Women in Aviation International (WAI), the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), Limitless Space Institute (LSI), ISS National Laboratory, and NASA. 

 Significant academic improvements were seen during the camp, with campers’ test scores soaring from an average of 40% on the pre-test to an average of 92% on the post-test. Additionally, every camper mastered the phonetic alphabet, an essential tool in aviation communication.  

The camp’s culmination day, Flight Friday, was an unforgettable experience for everyone involved. The campers traveled to Leesburg Executive Airport where they toured the Air Traffic Control Tower, gaining a comprehensive understanding of aviation operations. Through Mia Anderson’s work in the Experimental Aircraft Association, she was able to provide EAA Young Eagles program flights to the campers. They had the opportunity to take a thrilling flight in a Cessna airplane providing a bird’s-eye view of their town and school. 

 Mia, an enthusiastic volunteer and accomplished fixed wing and glider pilot and Miss Virginia Teen Volunteer, has been a dedicated volunteer at Tucker’s school for three years. Her passion for sharing her love of aviation was evident throughout the day. This flight experience, generously facilitated by Mia and supported by her parents, who are both Southwest Airlines professionals, left an indelible mark on the young aviators.  

As AFA teacher collaborators and ambassadors, these two outstanding teachers laid the groundwork for future youth-centric events to be replicated across the nation.