THE B-26 AIRCRAFT ASSEMBLY TEAM PROJECT
Middle and High School Students
Two hours
$10 per student
(To add a tour of the flight line of 15 aircraft, add $2 per person and 1 hour.)
Participants will assume the roles of aviation experts involved in an effort to assemble a B-26 Marauder, their jobs mirroring the original B-26 assembly workforce in Tool Crib, Sub-Assembly, Transportation, Platform Assembly, and Final Assembly. This STEM exercise will incorporate World War II history setting the story of the aircraft, Geography setting the locations the aircraft flew, and Economics setting the tone of World War II homefront workers. Pre-visit preparation of students as instructed by this program’s Teacher Manual is required prior to students participating in the program.
Beginning with the pre-visit preparation of the students at school through to the completion of the project, the B-26 Assembly Project Supports the Following Standards:
Common Core Reading Standards for Literacy in Science and Technical Subjects:
1. Follow precisely a complex multistep procedure when carrying out experiments, taking measurement, or performing technical tasks.
2. Compare and contrast the information gained from video or multimedia sources with that gained from reading a text on the same topic.
Common Core Writing Standards for Literacy in Science and Technical Subjects:
1. Write informative/explanatory texts, including the narration of historical events, scientific procedures / experiments, or technical process.
Common Core Standards for Mathematical Practice:
1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
4. Model with mathematics.
5. Use appropriate tools strategically.
6. Attend to precision.
7. Look for and make use of structure.
8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.
International Technology Education Association Standards for Technology Literacy:
1. Participants will develop an understanding of the attributes of design.
2. Participants will develop an understanding of the role of troubleshooting, research and development, invention and innovation, and experimentation in problem solving.