A hands-on journey through the physics, engineering, and culture of aviation
An interview with teachers Nelson Mugisha and Soteira Briginshaw
“Kids really respond to authentic, real world entry points. The more that we can make that feel real for them, by bringing in real people with real expertise and a passion for the work, the better.”
By Glen Herbert
Flight is a concept introduced in the Grade 5 curriculum and formalised in Grade 6. On the face of it, the learning is focused on physics and engineering: investigations of how objects move through space and air, the mechanics of bodies in motion.
Were you to have stopped in at RSGC in the last few months, you would have seen those kinds of investigations. You would have seen students outside one sunny, warm October afternoon, on the turf with tape measures, pencils, and paper, sending paper planes into the air. You would have seen them making notes on what worked well, and registering disappointments about what might not have worked as well as they thought it might. In the moment, and in the days after, they applied the engineering design process to refine their thinking—observing, sketching, justifying each design choice, and applying what they’ve learned, in class and outside in the sun.
But then there was also so much more. In a developing practice, the Grade 5 and 6 teachers have combined aspects of the curriculum to address the science outcomes while adding aspects of the humanities outcomes. The students spoke with mechanics and historians of aviation at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum. They met Oliver Prowse, a newly accredited commercial pilot, and with him watched planes take off from Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport. They had a sketching workshop with the art teacher. They met with a panel of experts that included mechanical engineers, aviation entrepreneurs, and aviation enthusiasts.
Throughout, the students gained and applied scientific knowledge. They also learned about people—the work that they do, and the culture around aviation, past and present.
As Stefanie Turner writes, “This is project-based learning at its finest: an ongoing, authentic, hands-on experience that invites students to speak to real audiences, apply feedback, stay open-minded, and truly own their learning.”
I spoke with Grade 5 teacher Soteira Briginshaw and Grade 6 teacher Nelson Mugisha just after the unit completed.
You do this unit, in this way, every two years. Did you do anything different this year from what you’ve done in the past?
Soteira Briginshaw: I think, particularly this year, we’ve merged the humanities and STEM really seamlessly. There’s work around the history of aviation and innovation. And we’re also moving into our unit on Canada’s Interactions with the Global Community. So, we’re looking at things like international aid and international cooperation, and how aviation has shaped that, how it becomes a tool, how changes in aviation have changed the way that we work together as human beings.
There’s sort of this central concept of interconnection that we’ve really tried to pull as a thread throughout the engineering piece, thinking about the different variables of the plane’s movement through the air, but then also the interconnection of countries working together. How do we depend on each other? So that’ll be continuing into that humanities piece, now that they built the gliders.
It’s like you’re creating all these entry points for kids who have different interests, different curiosities.
SB: Yes, it gives students also a chance to stretch in areas that aren’t familiar, and to shine in areas that they really love. And the students really are agents of their own learning. We provide a framework, we provide a buffet of information, we provide them small micro lessons to sort of spark their curiosity, and then we encourage them to ask questions. We respond, and we follow them down the different paths that kind of emerge. But the spark, I think, is from them.
It’s very collaborative, and not just for the students. As teachers, is this a unique experience? To work this closely together?
Nelson Mugisha: We really deepened our collaboration relationship because if you’re two teachers teaching two classes, it takes time to meet, talk, reflect, look at students’ work to make the whole unit a success. And you love it. I love it. I usually say that if I could not collaborate with other teachers, I wouldn’t be a teacher. I would not teach in isolation. You know, when we sit together, when we sit with the Grade 5 teacher, and we sit with Ms. Turner and other teachers talking about students, you can tell that everyone is bringing something to the table. I’m bringing something, they’re bringing something.
Do you always have the panel of experts come in when you do this unit?
SB: We tried that last year with our human organ systems unit, and it was beautiful. We are lucky in that we have a lot of community members that are willing to give their time. Last year, in the organ systems unit we brought in a gastroenterologist, a family doctor, and a social epidemiologist, who were all parents of students in our class. The gastroenterologist brought in a scope and was showing kids pictures of what she looks at, which, based on the age of our students, was of course compelling. We had a parent who is a family doctor who brought in a heart rate monitor and blood pressure cuff, as well as EpiPen dummies for the kids to practice with her, into an orange. Having the students experience real tools like this was so special. And then the parent who was a social epidemiologist sparked such important and rich discussions about health issues in our community through real-world data and graphs that would be used to inform policy and practices in community health care work.
Kids really respond to authentic, real-world entry points. The more that we can make that feel real for them, by bringing in real people with real expertise and a passion for the work, the better. And having the experts in this year’s project positioned as design consultants for their wooden gliders was perfect. It elevated the caliber of presentation skills that we were observing in our students and it felt exciting for them to have an authentic audience.
You describe it as “beautiful.” That’s an interesting choice of word given the context.
NM: It is beautiful because when you get to see how much the students were able to do on their own, how excited they were, how engaged they were. The risks we took are part of that as well, because we really took risks, like allowing, people from the outside to come into the learning and classroom. … Sometimes teaching can be a place where you feel protective of how you teach, your approach to teaching. You might be comfortable with your colleagues seeing what you’re teaching, but then when you extend it outside your colleagues, there’s a risk in that. But there’s so much to be learned from that experience.
SB: Yes, I think it’s unique. It doesn’t always happen in all schools. I feel really lucky that we have the freedom to build the curriculum in such a cohesive and organic way with the kids. And that we have community members that are interested in showing up and inviting the kids into their worlds.
And then the kids also make it beautiful. We’ve done this project every two years. The design drawings this round were miles ahead of where they were before. And part of that is that we’ve learned as we’ve done this, and we can tweak the opportunities we’re creating for the students. Just like the kids, every time we do something, we get a chance to make it better. We’re also iterating our curriculum. In this particular round, we were able to offer more diverse and rich opportunities to learn about the forces of flight and the way that objects move through the air. With deeper background knowledge built early on, we could really stretch students to explain their thinking, to further develop that presenter skillset, and to make their learning visible to their audience when the experts came in.
Their design drawings this round were super detailed, full of measurements and annotations that referenced the four forces of flight. And there was a lot more variation in their design this time, which I think came from the opportunities to observe planes at the Island Airport, to visit the Warplane Museum, to build and test a variety of paper airplanes, and to look at different flying machines throughout history. Then when industry experts come in this year, it feels like it kind of levels things up for our students. They like to show off what they’ve learned and get authentic feedback from experts. It takes the learning and design work so much further.
It seems very reciprocal. When I was in the room, the presenters really seemed to enjoy translating their knowledge and experience to the students.
SB: Yes, and it was really interesting to hear from them afterward. There was a sort of surprise. Hart [Honickman, PhD, a technology development engineer] was surprised by the level of knowledge that they had, and the level of the depth of thinking that they were doing.
So, I think it’s as much a gift for the kids as it is for the adults. Adults in industry don’t often get the practice of explaining their work in depth to someone younger. And to see the spark that probably was in them when they were young. Getting to sort of transport themselves back to the age that they probably were when they got really excited about this kind of learning. It’s cool for them as much as it is for the kid.
What do you love about it?
SB: I really love how it starts from a really playful place. Kids would build paper airplanes every minute of every day if we let them. They love it. So, [we] start from that place of comfort and familiarity and then lead them into looking at different designs. “Do you know about elevators and how those work?” And, “How does that change the way that the plane moves through the air? Have you thought about, you know, changing the wingspan or cutting the plane in this way?”
It’s super accessible right from the get-go, and kids buy in really quickly. When that happens, then we’re able to really stretch them and help them expand their understanding of the physics and engineering pieces that we’re ultimately trying to build with the curriculum.
I love that you got to the Warplane Museum. In the photos you got of the kids there with the docents, they are absolutely rapt.
SB: Honestly, the interactions with the docents are why we keep going back. The folks who work there are all of a particular generation. I believe it is incredibly significant—and often an entirely new experience—for students this age to sit with an adult from that generation and commit to deep, sustained listening for twenty-five minutes or more. In our fast-paced, digital world, the opportunity to pause and be fully present with a human story is wonderful.
And when these docents tell their stories, which are often about people and their experiences in the war, it’s immediately compelling. They do such a beautiful job of humanizing that history and talking about the real impact on Canadians. It moves history off the page and brings it to life. You can see the benefit instantly—once the stories finish, we can’t stop the students from asking questions. That connection through intergenerational storytelling is exactly what fosters empathy and historical understanding in our students.
What do you feel the kids took away from this unit, in addition to the content of the curriculum, the science and engineering outcomes?
NM: I think they, first of all, learned how to work together. So we have four things that we look at, those are high-level skills: designer, presenter, developer, researcher. Being a designer, [you’re asking] how do I transfer information to apply it to something?
As as presenter, first of all, you have to know your audience. You know that you’re going to meet someone who understands flight really well. I have to be able to explain my design using the scientific terms, and make sure that they actually understand them, that they make sense.
As a developer, you are looking at prototyping. They made the designs using all the information that they’ve gained through their research, along with a lot of feedback.
And the research piece, you can see what they’ve been able to do, with data and trials and the information they found from the research, and they applied it throughout the process.
So, I would say that the four core competencies for the school, that’s where I see the learning came through. We’re excited about all these goals that we set, and kids having met them as designers, researchers, developers, and presenters.
