On Saturday, Aug. 3, the Aviation Museum welcomed a delegation of Japanese educators touring the U.S. to study youth aviation education programs.
Visiting were Osada Hiroyuki, vice principal of the Tokyo Metropolitan Tachikawa Kokusai Secondary Education School, with colleagues Akiko Nagamatsu and Atsushi Shiomi.
At the Aviation Museum, Executive Director Jeff Rapsis reviewed the museum’s youth aviation programs, highlighting our student plane-building partnerships with local high schools as well as the ‘Flights of Discovery’ summer camp program.
The group also learned how we use stories of local aviation legends such as Astronaut Alan Shepard to inspire the next generation of aviation and aerospace innovators.
Rapsis also regaled the delegation with tales from his time working in Tokyo in the 1990s at the Yomiuri Shimbun, then and now the world’s largest circulation newspaper.
Visitors were also presented with official Aviation Museum mugs as well as samples of our line of aviation history jams. Many thanks to volunteer Rich Filteau for giving the group a tour of the museum to everyone at the museum that day for making our visitors feel welcome and at home.
Who knows? High school students in Japan may soon be building airplanes, too!
