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This month marks the annual kickoff of one CAP Aerospace Education program -- Aerospace Connections in Education (ACE) -- and the annual wrap-up of another (National AE High-Altitude Balloon Challenge).
Kicking off the year earlier this month, Civil Air Patrol's ACE program held its 2022-2023 National CAP ACE Liftoff in Hoover, Alabama, at Bluff Park Elementary School, which was recognized as the 2022 National CAP ACE School of the Year (pictured). Read about the event below.
Tomorrow, October 22, the awards video for the 2022 National AE High-Altitude Balloon Challenge for Cadets will premiere on YouTube. You don't want to miss it, but if you do, you can catch a replay. Find out all the details and links below.
Get updates on CAP's Aerospace Education Excellence (AEX), TOP flight and STEM Kit programs in this newsletter. See also regular AE Safety Check and Curriculum Spotlight features as well as an AE member story from Arkansas Wing.
If you have any information you'd like to see highlighted in the newsletter, contact us at ae@capnhq.gov. We have a special request for AEOs and AEMs to send us their best photos and videos. Keep reading to find out how.
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THIS MONTH: Member story - Program updates - AE Safety Check - Curriculum - Important things to know | |
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PROGRAM UPDATES
ACE has Lifted Off for the 2022-2023 year!
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Congratulations to Alabama’s Hoover City Schools Bluff Park Elementary School and the school's STEAM teacher, Geri Evans, as the winners of the 2022 CAP Aerospace Connections in Education (ACE) program School of the Year and Sustained Excellence national ACE awards! These awards led to the school being the site of the 2022-2023 National ACE Lift-off this month. Read the ACE Lift-off article to find out all the special events the community provided for these ACE students. Thanks to the Air & Space Forces Association (AFA) for the ACE shirts and to the CAP Springville Civil Air Patrol, AL-126 for the Color Guard!
Schools across the nation can join in on the free K-6 (or schoolwide K-8) aerospace/STEM program and have their own school lift-off events! Last year, almost 85,000 youth across America were ACE students, and CAP hopes to reach new heights this academic year. To find out more or to register, click on the links below.
(Click the video below to watch a local news weather report which aired live from the school on ACE Lift-off day).
For additional questions, contact ace@capnhq.gov.
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It's time to take teachers out
of the classroom and into the sky
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Any educator member of CAP can request a Teacher Orientation Program (TOP) flight each year to fly above their local school and geographic area. The pilot will provide a detailed pre-flight briefing about the parts of the airplane and will allow the teacher to take the controls during flight to see how all those parts work and connect to STEM principles being taught.
- Teachers should find another educator member of CAP and plan their flight together NOW! When two teachers fly, the pilot will make two take-offs and landings to allow both teachers time in the front seat to fly the plane.
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Each state has its own point of contact with whom to start the discussion of the flight. See the list of state Directors of AE HERE.
All information about the TOP flight program is found on the TOP flight webpage. Click the link below.
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CAP's AE STEM Kit Program -- featured kit | |
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FEATURED STEM KIT - REMOTE- CONTROLLED (RC) AIRCRAFT: Sky Streak airplanes will be included in this kit for very beginning building and flying of model aircraft. This simple model building and experimentation with flying will lead to learning to fly remote-controlled aircraft via a Real Flight Simulator computer program, a hand-held controller, two Skystreak balsa planes and a Mini Apprentice, the remote-controlled aircraft -- all of which are included in this kit. This program complements the CAP AEX Model Aircraft and Remote-Controlled (MARC) modules developed by a CAP volunteer. The MARC I and II modules are available online in the AE Downloads and Resources section of the CAP member portal, eServices. This kit is intended to take advantage of the added bonus of the opportunity for youth to work with area Academy of Model Aeronautics clubs for mentorship in learning to fly real remote-controlled airplanes, especially in AMA's TAG (Take-off and Grow) programs.
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Aerospace Education Excellence (AEX) Program | |
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AEX Award registration for squadrons and AEMs: A new year of AEX is beginning! Make sure your squadron or classroom applies for the 2022-2023 AEX Award program in eServices. AEX program activities should take place from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30 each year. Activities and resources are available in eServices, AE Downloads and Resources, and on the AE website, Lessons and Activity Videos and Aerospace/STEM Resources.
To learn more about the AEX Program, click the link below.
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All CAP AE Programs Participants: We need your photos | |
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AEOS and AEMs: You are promoting aerospace/STEM education daily to thousands of youth all over the nation. We have a favor to ask. To help us promote the great work you do in CAP AE and the impact that work has, please take and send us photos and videos of your lessons, activities and field trips. Often, we can use photos from cell phones, sent at their largest, actual size. Other times we need larger files (photos larger than 300 dpi).
Photos and videos should:
- Feature only youth with permissions to be photographed for publication
- Reflect the diversity in your classrooms and squadrons
- Be clear of clutter such as snack packages or soft drink bottles
If you have photos and/or videos of any programs or lessons please email them to ae@capnhq.gov. If there are multiple pictures or large files, you may provide access via a link to downloadable media. In your email, please include information such as the state/wing and school/squadron and a main contact for additional information. Thank you in advance for helping
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National High-Altitude Balloon Challenge
Awards Ceremony premiering Oct. 22
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The awards ceremony for the 2nd annual National AE High-altitude Balloon Challenge for Cadets will be premiered Saturday, Oct. 22, at 4 p.m. EDT, and available as a video thereafter on the AE YouTube channel of the HAB Challenge Director, Capt. Bob Roberts, Director of Aerospace Education for the South Carolina Wing. (The link to the event will be posted on that channel Saturday.)
CAP leaders will be congratulating the winners of the Col. Joe Kittinger Cup and Kittinger’s $5,000 award donation, and will applaud the diligent and time-consuming work of over 1,500 cadet participants and their adult leaders. Additionally, winners of several categories of the challenge will be announced: digital and hand-drawn mission patches, pre-launch video, science experiment analysis report, and final documentary video. (Pictured: photos of cadets conducting experiment analysis.)
Participating cadets from 122 squadrons worked for several months to design and submit over 500 science experiments which, in August, were launched in Indiana to the edge of space in high-altitude weather balloons. The Indiana Wing implemented a full Search and Rescue Exercise for the launch day to demonstrate how this national cadet STEM challenge integrated all three CAP missions: Emergency Services, Cadet Programs and Aerospace Education.
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(Welcome to AE Safety Check! These safety nuggets are things to think about as you lead or participate in an Aerospace Education activity. The writer of this monthly feature is Lt. Col. Karen Cooper, who works in safety and risk management on the AE National Headquarters Staff and is also the Northeast Region DCS/Aerospace Education.)
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HOLD A SAFETY SCAVENGER HUNT
No ever said that safety had to be boring. The next time you are running an AE activity – add in a “Safety Scavenger Hunt”! For 5 minutes, challenge your students to identify (and possibly mitigate) any safety issues that they can find in the room. Keep in mind that they may not be able to fix them all, sometimes you can only make it better, but they certainly can eliminate tripping hazards, barriers to the emergency exits, X-acto knives that are not properly stored, etc. Anything that they cannot eliminate immediately should be reported to your unit safety officer.
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If you have a safety topic you would like to be included in this space, please email kcooper@ner.cap.gov. | |
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AEO/COMMANDER STORY
Arkansas Deputy DAE enjoys opportunity
to teach cadets, students and teachers
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Meet Maj. Janice Podgurski, Arkansas Wing Deputy Director of Aerospace Education and Fort Smith Composite Squadron Commander. She joined CAP in 2018 after family members had joined. Since her CAP beginnings, she has been interested in aerospace education, and she is a multiple-time award winner for her aerospace contributions. She is a retired high school math teacher with years of experience in a number of fields, including finance, bookkeeping and accounting prior to teaching. Maj. Podgurski hopes her story shows others that the path to volunteering in aerospace education is there for those who may have limited aerospace experience but who feel called to help in AE. She's always known she wanted to teach. "In AE with CAP, I get to teach cadets, and I get to teach teachers (through our many workshops), and the AEM outreach," she says. "I also get to interact with the community, schools and other youth organizations here in Fort Smith." Now that she is retired from teaching, she is going back to earn her Bachelor's in Math along with a very busy CAP schedule. She's had a number of memorable experiences in CAP so far, but some stand out. "Every time I see a light bulb blink on above a child's head, that is all the reward I need," she says. Click the link below to read the full story.
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"Utilize your cadets; take them when you go to classrooms, or conferences. Let them pick the STEM kit they are interested in. Let them lead it -- they are there to learn to be leaders. Let them -- in that controlled environment where mistakes are OK."
-- Maj. Janice Podgurski, Deputy DAE, Arkansas Wing
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CURRICULUM SPOTLIGHT
Straw Rockets
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In this lesson, students will make a soda straw rocket. They will learn some rocket science principles that they will put into action as they launch their straw rockets by blowing into a straw. They will get to practice hitting a target and then record data and create a graph. Straw Rockets is Academic Lesson #6 in the Kindergarten Aerospace Connections in Education (ACE) Teacher's Guide. Or find the Straw Rockets lesson plan here. ACE is CAP's K-6 STEM program, and registration has opened for the 2022-2023 school year. Find more information on the ACE Program here. | |
Each month, this space features important highlights or answers to frequently asked questions. Here are three things you need to know as an AEM or AEO. | |
You can update your eServices profile information. Here's how: | |
Sign into eServices and click on your name in the top right hand corner. Update your email address, mailing address, contact numbers, etc. This ensures you receive timely and pertinent information from CAP. If you are a teacher, ensure your primary email address is your home and your secondary email address is your school so that your annual renewal email and any other important information will not end up as spam in your school email account.
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AEMs: Is it time to renew your membership? | |
All Aerospace Education Members (AEMs) are offered an annual FREE “in-kind renewal." The online renewal email is sent 60 days prior to the membership expiration date. A renewal banner appears at the top of the eServices sign-in page 90 days prior to expiring. (You can’t renew earlier than 90 days.) Find additional information at the link below. Thinking that due to the pandemic you cannot participate in CAP’s AE programs? That may be partly true, but when we get back to “normal,” you will wish you kept your membership current, so do not let it expire!
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AEOs: Reach out to AEMs whose memberships expire soon | |
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AEOs, this is the perfect time to reach out to your AEMs whose memberships expire within 60 days or whose memberships have expired. For more guidance, see Recruiting and Retention of AEMs on the AEO Resources page link below.
Please note: CAP has several categories of membership, but each member can only be assigned one category of membership. Any adult uniformed member, who is an educator, may access all the resources available to an AEM. And, we wish to encourage our AEMs to “hang on” until the end of the pandemic and continue renewing their membership. Once things are back to “normal,” they will be glad they did!
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