Listen, Touch, Taste And Learn

Imagine going to the museum on a school tour.

You are between twelve and sixteen and will ride a bus nearly an hour and half to get there. It is an aviation museum and some of you remember going there two years ago. The ones who did are still talking about it.

Going in you will be divided into smaller groups that travel station to station. There is the Link trainer where students learn how a man whose father made organs devised a machine that simulated night flying so pilots could hone their instrument flying skills without the risk of crashing on dark, cloudy, or stormy nights when they couldn't see. There is a table where some pretty exotic model planes allow you to learn the names of the different planes and their parts. For example, the pitot tube which helps determine how fast the plane is going and the fact that helicopters have rotary blades, not propellers.

You will get to touch a giant engine and hear how it sounds when it is actually in use. You will also go outside and see all of the actual helicopters and planes, climbing into many of them and actually touching, wings, wheels, tails, pitot tubes etc. Then there will be a souvenir shop where you can choose from souvenirs your teacher has pre-approved ranging from two to four dollars. Lunch will be served by volunteers in the hangar next door and everyone hopes this will be another great trip.

The tricky part is that all of these children are visually handicapped and a few have other disabilities which would normally make museum tours very unlikely. With the help of many retired teachers and dedicated volunteers they are able to experience a great deal more than you might believe and everyone will have a great time. We have braille signs for the outside planes and the gift shop. We moved things and adjusted things so they can be touched from all sorts of angles and we will break the bus load down into 3-4 children per group, each with a "Tour Leader" who will help them transition from station to station, or plane to plane.

We've been planing this for several weeks, but tomorrow is the big day. I can't wait to see how it all goes!