By Shannon Steedman For all its beautiful airplanes and great educational programs, what the Museum of Flight does best is inspire. As an educator, I'm constantly on the lookout for programs that inspire my students to set goals and work toward achieving them. Sometimes all it takes is opening the doors to opportunity and showing our young men and women what's possible GÇô and then an interest is triggered, a dream begins to take shape. Unfortunately, for many students, those opportunities never arise. In my school district, there are high school students who have never left the county. In recent years, however, we've been able to get students involved in the Museum of Flight. First, we saw the first Eatonville student ever qualify for Washington Aerospace Scholars (WAS). This young man has always been full of energy, ready to do something great if given the chance. During the week-long summer residency, for the first time he was able to mix with students that were just like him GÇô kids with a shared love of technology and engineering. Eatonville High School will send another WAS student for the 2013 summer residency program. Second, during the WomenFly! program, seven Eatonville girls were able to make the trip to Seattle, two of whom had never ventured north of Tacoma. Listening to women pilots, astronauts, and even a woman who drives the Mars lander, they were mesmerized. And for maybe the very first time, they clearly saw what they could do with their own lives. They're no longer boxed in by geography. They see a wide open universe of possibility, where they can do anything they put their minds to. What a gift this museum has given them.
Shannon Steedman is the director of career and technical education at Eatonville High School.
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