Minnetonka High School students learn to fly through the school's Momentum aviation program
High school students often have a range of classes they can choose from. Minnetonka High School's Momentum aviation program allows students to get hands-on, interactive lessons about all things airplanes.
"There's a demand for everything in aviation, so mechanics and flight attendants and, you know, airport managers, all that stuff," said Scott Shaffer, Aviation Teacher at Minnetonka High School. "We have an introduction to aviation class, where they just learn about the airport environment, parts of an airplane, and the physics of an airplane."
The program is also a way to bring other lessons to life.
"We'll learn about someplace like Egypt, and then we'll go fly it in the simulator. It's super cool," said Junior Ava Walker. "Or like right now, we're learning about World War One, and we're flying the Jenny, which is the second plane to be produced after the Wright Brothers' plane."
"Physics, meteorology, economics, current events, the stuff that's happening in the news as it happens. Guess where we're flying, you know. So it takes the things that are happening right now, and just, I can make it more alive throughout the class," said Shaffer.
It's the third year of the program and it's already taking off.
"There's just nothing like this in the state or even in the country," said Senior Anders McNeill. "To have a high school and to be able to know what career you want to go into after high school, and even college. That's my favorite part."
"The demand has been amazing. And now for next year, year four, we'll have 330 students of our population of 3600 and so it continues to grow. The student interest is there," said Principal Jeff Erickson.
Erickson says none of this would be possible without the help of the community and industry input.
"It is really partners making it happen, also having people come in here to certify their hours, because the machines around me do count for their license, and so in their log book," said Erickson. "So partners make a difference in all of our experiential learning programs."
The 2 FAA approved simulators the students have are impressive. Students also have the opportunity to fly in a real plane with a discovery flight out of Lakeville's Airlake Airport.
"If you can see the students when they get out of the plane from their discovery flights, it's amazing. Just the smiles on their faces, how excited they are. And then I you know, it's like, now I know they're going to take the advanced class," said Shaffer.
An opportunity that is quite literally changing the path of these students and their futures.
"Before this, I had no clue what I wanted to do, and then after doing my first discovery flight, I figured out that this is the path I want to take," said Walker.
"It is very satisfying when I see, you know, just yesterday, I saw one of my students flying into St Martin," said Shaffer. "How cool is that to see my former student flying a 767, into St. Martin. That's super satisfying."
"For students have that interest sparked here and seeing that what they're learning here can turn into an opportunity, it's pretty amazing," said Erickson.
