curriculum<\/a>, for presentations about the aviation industry and a chance to hop aboard a Cirrus SF50 Vision Jet. The students spoke with career pilots, CFIs, and female aviation mechanics about what it\u2019s like to work in a male-dominated industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\nBushweller also spent time on classroom observation and\nheard from the students how the curriculum is directly impacting their future.\nSenior Ayman Bustillos, who plans to study aerospace engineering at\nEmbry-Riddle Aeronautical University, told Bushweller that an assignment to\ninvestigate an aircraft crash was among the most “powerful and memorable\nproblem-solving lessons he learned, [a lesson that] ‘helped me in my decision\nto become an aerospace engineer.'”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Education Week highlighted the continuous growth of AOPA\u2019s\ncurriculum that is being used in high school career and technical education\nprograms, and how it has flourished, growing from use in 29 schools in 17\nstates for the 2017-18 school year to 322 schools in 44 states for the 2021-22\nschool year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
AOPA is proud of the fact that the makeup of the students in\nthe curriculum is far more diverse than the current pilot population and\naviation workforce: Forty percent of the participants in the program are\nstudents of color and 21 percent are female.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the video interview, Shults described her experience in\nthe aviation industry and her advice to the next generation looking to follow\nin her footsteps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019ve spent the last couple of years on a women\u2019s advisory\nboard to the FAA and just looking at some of the reasons that we don\u2019t have\nvery many women in aviation,” Shults said in the video. “AOPA has\ndone this amazing bridge so that anyone can know not only more about aviation,\nbut the practical, logical steps of how do you get into this industry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There has never been a better time than now for students\ninterested in pursuing a career in the aviation industry. \u201cThe surge in interest\nis fueled largely by growing opportunities in the airline industry, which faces\nmassive shortages of pilots, mechanics, and other jobs due to retirements and\nthe domestic and international expansion strategies of many airlines,”\nBushweller wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the airlines are also on board with the work AOPA is\ndoing to prepare students for their ranks. Education Week spoke with Brad\nMorrison, manager of pilot recruiting and development for American Airlines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“‘What I tell kids now,’ Morrison said, ‘is this is how\nI wish the industry would have been 20 years ago’ when he was thinking of\npursuing a career as a pilot. There are way more opportunities now to enter the\nairline industry in a variety of careers and get promoted quickly, he\nsaid.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
AOPA’s effort to promote aviation-based STEM education\npreviously earned acclaim\u2014and national exposure\u2014 in recent years from PBS\nNewsHour, CNN, Forbes, and Scripps, among others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association Foundation High School Aviation STEM Curriculum has seen phenomenal growth in the five years since educators across the country began using it to teach students about aviation. That growth is showcased in a recent special report by Education Week, one of America’s most trusted resources for education news and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":22039,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[98,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aviation-education","category-maryland"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/aopa-story-on-education-5-22.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22038"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22041,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22038\/revisions\/22041"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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