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<\/a>After a few ceremonial photos and signing of an official partnership agreement, the students got right to work. They won\u2019t present their ideas for marketing and student learning experiences to the museum\u2019s board of directors until April, but none of them wanted to waste any time.<\/p>\nWalking wide-eyed with iPads, the newly-appointed advisers toured the museum\u2019s aircraft hangers with docents, taking notes and photos for research. The official adviser t-shirts they received permit them and a parent to visit the museum free of charge to continue researching as needed.<\/p>\n
They captured photos of plane wings and nose cones.<\/p>\n
They peeked in open bomb bay doors and peered in cockpit windows.<\/p>\n
They marveled at ammunition and asked about aircraft insignia.<\/p>\n
Only 20 minutes into its tour, one group was already brimming with ideas on how to help the museum with its marketing problem. They rattled them off to principal Casey Conger on their way to the next hanger, adding to one another\u2019s ideas as they walked.<\/p>\n -They need a Twitter account. <\/em><\/p>\n -And Instagram!<\/em><\/p>\n -We need to tell people to come when Santa visits. <\/em><\/p>\n -And we can take video of him flying in.<\/em><\/p>\n -We can post pictures of all the different planes. <\/em><\/p>\n -And share facts about them. <\/em><\/p>\n -Like, a red star on a plane meant it was Russian and a white star meant it was American.<\/em><\/p>\n -Yeah, and we can tell them that most of the planes here still fly.<\/em><\/p>\n -Even though some are almost 100 years old.<\/em><\/p>\n -One plane flew nonstop. <\/em><\/p>\n -Its wings were full of gas!<\/em><\/p>\n -And one has an oven in it.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cAn oven? I\u2019m not cooking while I\u2019m flying,\u201d countered Conger. \u201cI already cook too much on land.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell,\u201d the student responded, \u201cyou gotta eat.\u201d<\/p>\n Fifth-grader Autumn Gregory thinks the museum should set up a learning station where students can sort through smaller plane parts and build their own aircraft.\u00a0She is quick to add that the museum can then Tweet photos of the new creations.<\/p>\n Gregory and her classmates will have such an opportunity when they return to the museum at the end of the month for a design challenge. They will apply lessons learned about force and motion to build their own planes and test them on the museum\u2019s runway Oct. 30.<\/p>\n After their tours, the students gathered for a closing session, reviewing their photos and sharing cat-and-mouse videos.<\/p>\n<\/a>They also couldn\u2019t resist taking video when they spotted a tabby cat chasing a mouse on the floor of the World War I hanger. Even official advisers get distracted by a good cat-and-mouse chase.<\/p>\n