Third, fourth and fifth graders from throughout the district are experiencing a new form of enrichment during their school day with the district’s Flight School program. Facilitated by Flight School instructors Meghan Ceglie and Corinne Teichman, the new enrichment-for-all program allows students to explore high interest units of study through interactive learning experiences. 

Throughout the school year, students are introduced to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Students participate in three separate modules where they learn about worldly issues and transform into engineers to solve problems. Each class experiences Flight School during the course of a two-day period at their home school with their respective Flight School instructor. 

Recently, third graders at Marion Street, Waverly Park and West End elementary schools learned about animal adaptations, biomes and invasive species during Flight School. The students put their new knowledge to the test as they participated in a Breakout EDU activity with a group of their classmates. Breakout EDU takes the popular escape room concept and brings it into the classroom as an immersive learning game. Students received a small lockbox with six different locks that they needed to open, using their newfound knowledge. 

The third graders worked together to find the correct combinations. Flight School instructors and classroom teachers helped guide students. After successfully unlocking their six locks, the students eagerly opened their lockboxes to find a surprise. The activity was not only enjoyable for the students but it also encouraged communication, strategy, teamwork and strong critical thinking skills. 

 “I thought it was pretty fun,” said West End third grader Annabel Jahn. “I learned that there are way more biomes than I thought there were and it was really exciting to finally open the lockbox because we didn’t know what was in there.” 

On the second day of Flight School, third graders participated in an engineering challenge where they created adaptations to help their paper frog species survive in its habitat.