{"id":27025,"date":"2023-10-30T20:30:41","date_gmt":"2023-10-30T20:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/saj.pachecostudios.com?p=27025"},"modified":"2023-10-30T20:33:29","modified_gmt":"2023-10-30T20:33:29","slug":"american-airlines-and-cr-smith-museum-launch-aved-program-bridging-the-classroom-and-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/state-news\/texas\/american-airlines-and-cr-smith-museum-launch-aved-program-bridging-the-classroom-and-industry\/%20","title":{"rendered":"American Airlines and CR Smith Museum Launch AvEd Program Bridging the Classroom and Industry"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Photo above – Students at the CR Smith Museum\u2019s annual Aviation Career Day in 2022 were coached on flight simulators by students attending the American Airlines Cadet Academy. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

American Airlines and the CR Smith Museum<\/a> are teaming up to introduce a new education program to inspire the next generation of aviation professionals. The multi-year Aviation Career Pathways program is designed for middle and high school students and provides access to aviation STEM education and exposure to industry career opportunities. The program will initially engage students in seventh to 12th grade at multiple schools in the Dallas Independent School District. It has room to grow to other schools in Dallas-Fort Worth and beyond long-term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Increasing students\u2019 exposure and confidence to aviation\nSTEM careers and skills comes with challenges, especially when working with\nschools in underserved communities, and most of the schools participating in\nAviation Career Pathways are Title 1 schools. The CR Smith Museum, an\nindependent nonprofit organization located on American\u2019s campus in Fort Worth,\nhas extensively studied these challenges and put solutions to them at the\ncenter of its education program development in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe challenges we see in research and hear from school\nleaders are threefold. First, one touch point isn\u2019t enough. Second,\nopportunities need to be more than a presentation. And finally, transportation\nat schools in underserved communities is limited,\u201d said Marie Eve\nPoirier-Harris, Education Director at the CR Smith Museum. \u201cAviation Career\nPathways brings the programming to the classroom, provides multiple touch\npoints that include hands-on experiences and goes beyond presentations to\ncreating connections with professionals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To help students build confidence toward future aviation\ncareer opportunities, students will engage in four to seven touch points with\nhands-on experiences that expose them to real-life scenarios. Touch points will\nrange from in-classroom engagements to participation in the CR Smith Museum\u2019s\nannual Aviation Career Day. Additionally, students will connect with American\nAirlines team members who faced similar life stories and can help guide\nstudents on their journey to an aviation career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About 15 of American\u2019s team members volunteer to coordinate\nand execute the Aviation Career Pathways program. Karon Washington, an\nengineer, partners on curriculum development and leads team member volunteer\noutreach that is instrumental to the program\u2019s operation. Karon and other\nvolunteers have stories of their own that relate to students\u2019 circumstances and\nprovide solutions to hurdles they may face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t have a role model in my immediate family or\nnetwork of friends who could guide me into a STEM or aviation career,\u201d said\nKaron. \u201cWhen it came time to decide college majors, I searched \u2018highest paying\njob with an undergraduate degree\u2019 on Google. That\u2019s how I stumbled upon\nengineering. It was a leap of faith, but that\u2019s how I got started.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After navigating the path on his own and earning a spot in\nthe engineering program at The University of South Florida, Karon wanted to\nfind a way to continue his volunteerism while at school. That\u2019s when he got\ninvolved with a nonprofit in the area and the National Society of Black\nEngineers. Through both organizations, Karon grew a STEM outreach program that\nprovided several weeks of engineering education to a local school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI want to make sure that kids have a role model,\u201d said\nKaron. \u201cEarly exposure makes all the difference. At first, they may not think\nthey can do it because they\u2019ve never heard about it or known someone who has\npursued an aviation career. That all changes when someone who is relatable can\nconnect with them and encourages them to try it for themselves through\ndigestible programming.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen the CR Smith Museum\u2019s education team came to me with\nthis program, I was all in,\u201d said Karon. \u201cWith multiple touch points, kids\nenjoy having an outlet that lets them get away from things that may be\nhappening around them. Plus, it reinforces confidence and helps increase the\nchances that they pursue the subject or career in the long run.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only are Aviation Career Pathways program leaders\nhearing the impact of the program anecdotally from students and teachers, but\npreliminary survey results also show a 32% increase in students\u2019 interest in\npursuing a career in the airline industry from those who were unsure or had no\ndesire to work in the field before engaging with the program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith a focus on equity, inclusion and belonging in our\norganizations, serving these students and providing them with the resources\nthey may not otherwise have access to is something that can be life-changing\nfor this generation and their families,\u201d said Marie Eve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Aviation Career Pathways is currently limited to\nserving students in Dallas-Fort Worth, the CR Smith Museum has resources\navailable to students around the country, including access to student\nprofessional organizations and information about career programs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo above – Students at the CR Smith Museum\u2019s annual Aviation Career Day in 2022 were coached on flight simulators by students attending the American Airlines Cadet Academy. American Airlines and the CR Smith Museum are teaming up to introduce a new education program to inspire the next generation of aviation professionals. The multi-year Aviation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":27026,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[144,98,116,62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aerospace-education","category-aviation-education","category-front-page-slider","category-texas"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/102723-flight-simulator.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27025","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=27025"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27030,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27025\/revisions\/27030"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}