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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2010 > February > 21 > Entry
Ellen Belcher: Air Camp is good for kids, Dayton
I get irked when people say that Dayton needs to get over the Wright brothers. Do these people believe that Springfield should forget Lincoln? That Memphis should bury Elvis?
You might have missed a brief story in this week’s newspaper about Air Camp USA that’s coming to the University of Dayton this summer, the week after the July air show.
Or maybe it didn’t stick with you because you don’t have middle-school kids, the target group.
But here’s another example of how the Wright brothers’ history is being leveraged, how two long-dead guys’ legacy can live on and work for Dayton’s benefit.
A person, after all, could start a summer camp focused on flying anywhere, but it feels especially right to do so in Dayton — the home of the Wright brothers and the place where they learned to steer, which, incidentally, was no tiny scientific breakthrough.
This is, I admit, a plug for the people beta testing the idea of hooking kids on science and math by teaching them about flying. But I mean to make a bigger point, too: Dayton’s history gives it special claims to things that few other communities can make. We need to seize them.
You don’t have to be overly sentimental, for instance, to imagine that Dayton’s past matters in discussions about Wright-Patterson Air Force Base’s future growth and importance in the AF’s orbit. Imagine someone proposing that Wright-Patt should be closed or downsized to the point of irrelevance.
Presumably more than a few generals and die-hard pilots would push that person out of the nearest plane.
Certainly, as NASA is deciding where to retire its shuttles, it can’t just skip over the Air Force museum’s bid as if Dayton were Anytown, USA.
Air Camp is borrowing some ideas from Space Camp in Huntsville, Ala., though, of course, that effort is richer and bigger, having been around since 1982.
Different people are in the local effort for different reasons, but the common interest is attracting young people to careers in aviation, engineering, science and math.
If, in so doing, local universities identify promising students, so be it; if the teachers who are involved come away with engaging lesson plans and new skills, so be it; if Dayton ends up attracting some families to town to drop off their child, that’s nice, too.
The Air Camp idea has been floating around for several years, but this year it’s finally and really going to happen, ideally with a class of 40 kids, each of whom will have to go through an application process.
This will not be band camp or a week of field trips. Rather, over the six days, students will fly unmanned aerial vehicles over UD; they will create a flight pattern for a humanitarian relief project; they’ll each co-pilot a plane; and they’ll have access to flight simulators.
The catch is that the gig costs $900 — too much for many, many families.
Scholarships will be available, but it’s not clear yet how many there will be.
Air Camp’s organizers — UD’s Tom Lasley; Vincent J. Russo, formerly executive director of the base’s Aeronautical Systems Center; Ret. Lt. Gen. Richard V. Reynolds; and Dan Sadlier, formerly of Fifth Third Bank — think they’ll have more financial aid next year, after they’ve delivered on an engaging, demanding educational immersion.
The effort is another spoke in the Dayton region’s push to be a certified and innovative hub for ensuring that there is a next generation of engineers, scientists, aviators, astronauts and mathematicians.
Beyond this, there is the STEM school at Wright State — STEM being short for science, technology, engineering and math — and the STEM center, which has teachers, academics and scientists producing new curriculum for teachers.
Aviation and Dayton’s history are central in both of these initiatives.
You never know what experience will capture a child’s imagination, what’s going to hook him or her — young. But if somebody let you pilot a plane or sit in an Air Force simulator, you probably wouldn’t forget that moment.
Where else but Dayton should that sort of education be a common — affordable — thing?
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