FMS 8th Graders Have a STEM Education Experience at iFLY

Foster Middle School Eighth Graders “Fly” with Grant Funding from the Longview ISD Foundation, Inc.
 
Kay Ray, Longview ISD Executive Director, interviewed the students to learn about their learning experience.
 
Who doesn’t want to fly like a bird, but who has the chance?  Eighth graders at Foster Middle School got the chance to experience flying like a bird while studying science and math because their teachers received grant funding from the Longview ISD Foundation’s John W. Harrison, Jr. Academic Field Trip Grant.  For their grant titled “I Fly, You Fly, We All Fly at iFly,” grant writers Cody Butler, Jordan Courtney, Kimberly Pierson, and LaShundra Rodgers received  $6,383.00 from the Longview ISD Foundation and a $500 Foster Middle School PTO Grant to take seventy traditional eighth grade students to iFly in McKinney.
 
On Friday, May 12, chartered buses filled with excited students and six teachers, Jordan Courtney, Ricardo de la Garza, Elizabeth Fowler, Brenda Hernandez, Chandra Hilburn, Kimberly Pierson, and Dan Wilson left Foster Middle School for their STEM education learning experience at iFly.  There they learned about math and physics in a state-of-the-art wind tunnel.  Trained STEM educators guided students through an immersive, hands-on experience of physic demonstrations in the wind tunnel, lab activities and experiments, and one-on-one flying with certified iFly flight instructors.
 
In groups, the eighth graders rotated through the lessons and the wind tunnel flying experience. In the classroom, students completed the Ball Flight Lab.  They measured the circumference of five spheres of different sizes, found their radius, and then calculated the frontal area, the area the wind “sees.”  After they had the answers to the ratio of mass to the frontal area, they calculated the terminal velocity and predicted how much air it would take to move each sphere. Based on their findings, the students accurately predicted which sphere would lift first and last. As they predicted, when the fuzzy ball was placed in the wind tunnel, it rose first due to its small mass. 
 
Next they watched a video to learn how to approach and act in the wind tunnel so they could fly just like the fuzzy sphere flew.  The students said they learned how to manage their bodies in order to have the best flight experience.  Each student had to hold his chin up, bend and spread legs apart, bend arms at the elbows, and spread fingers apart.   They also learned about the protective gear they would wear and how the flight guide would assist them in flight. 
 
Students were issued earplugs, goggles, a cap to secure their hair, a helmet, and a body suit.  After learning how to wear each piece of gear for safety, students began their minute of flight in the wind tunnel, a chamber about thirty feet in diameter but quite tall.  Students admitted not everyone flew, but almost every student took his or her turn.  One student admitted that she made the mistake of looking down through the steel grate in the wind tunnel, and her fear of heights took over.  One fearless girl, however, was so determined to fly that she volunteered to be first. 
 
As students approached the chamber, the iFly guide asked students to dive in, letting the wind push them upward in flight.  Another guide on the outside of tunnel used hand motions which the students had learned to help them guide their body position for the best flight experience.  Each student flew about four feet from the floor.  The students who weighed less flew higher.  In fact, one very light student had to be pulled down by the guide before she flew too high.  On the other hand, one of the football players could only fly when the wind machine was turned off for him to be positioned differently. The guide asked him to lie on the grate, and then the guide turned on the wind.  Suddenly he flew, proving how mass affects flight.  The more mass the student had, the more lift the wind had to produce to get him off the grate.
 
Students said the wind hitting them took their breath away momentarily, causing them to hold their breath.  Once they adjusted to the wind, however, they no longer held their breath.  The wind was so powerful that it pushed the skin on their cheeks back toward their ears.
 
All the students recommended iFly to others for a new experience and the opportunity to conquer their fear of heights if they have it.  The day also allowed them to apply classroom learning to a new experience. All said they would love to return.
 
Mrs. Pierson and Mrs. Courtney loved the experience but admitted they, like a few of the students, almost “chickened out.”  As role models for their students, however, they bravely completed their flight. Chandra Hilton, teacher, even volunteered to do the “high flyer” wind tunnel experience. Mrs. Pierson said it was the best field trip she had ever taken students on and was impressed with the employees of iFly and their ability to relate the STEM lessons to students. She also said she was also thinking of her next academic field trip request since this one had been such a great experience.   
 
The students expressed their thanks to the Longview ISD Foundation, Inc. for raising the funds necessary so they could have this fun, instructional learning opportunity, one that certainly could never be replicated in a classroom.   As Mrs. Pierson said, “Without this funding, many of our students would never have had this opportunity.”   She also spoke highly of the students’ behavior on the trip, including how the iFly guides praised the students for their excellent behavior, attentiveness, and cooperation.  
 
Thanks to community-wide financial support, the Longview ISD Foundation, Inc. has funded fourteen academic field trips since the program’s inception in November 2018 for a total of $61,733.74. Foster Middle School has received three of the fourteen academic field trip grants for a total of $18,164.75.