Up, Up and Away: Careers in Flight

Using a brainstorming strategy, such as Crazy8s, have students think of all the reasons people use aircraft. Responses can include:

• Moving people
• Moving things
• Helping people (e.g., search and rescue)
• Fighting fires
• Getting people to the hospital

Prompt students if they can only think of one or two of these categories.

Next, have students brainstorm careers/jobs of people that work with and on aircraft. We say that these people work in the aviation industry.

Explain to students that there are three main branches of the aviation industry:

1. Commercial (flight used to make money by carrying people or cargo e.g., airlines)
2. General (flight used for non-profit and non-military e.g., private pilots)
3. Military (i.e., flight used by the Canadian Armed Forces)

Some jobs are only needed in some branches (e.g., fighter jet pilot), whereas others exist in all (e.g., aviation mechanics).

Record student responses on a board, chart paper or digital projection that students can see.

If students find this task challenging, you could provide some category prompts such as people who:

• Design aircraft
• Build aircraft
• Fly aircraft
• Fix aircraft
• Help passengers on aircraft
• Help direct aircraft to their destinations

These prompts could be written on a board or chart paper for reference.

Language

Begin a word wall of terminology used in this lesson such as aircraft, aviation, baggage, cargo, passengers, etc. Continue to add to the wall during the lesson.

Have a discussion with students about how they know of these jobs. Encourage them to share personal connections if they have them, such as going on family trips, going to an airshow or driving by an airport. Students also may have seen people working in these jobs on TV (e.g., Super Wings, the Aviators), in movies (e.g., Disney Planes, Disney Planes Fire & Rescue) or in books.

Community Connections

Discussion prompts can include:

• “Where did you learn about the job you shared?“
• “Do you know someone who has a job working with aircraft? What do they do?”
• "What kinds of aircraft have you seen in the community? Where do you think they land? Where do you think they get fixed?"
• “Have you been on an aircraft?” “What people did you see working in and around it?”

Let students know that there are even MORE jobs in the aviation industry than they listed.

It takes many different people to design aircraft, test aircraft, fly aircraft and keep aircraft working properly as well as all of the people who work with passengers on aircraft and the stuff (cargo and baggage) that is carried on aircraft.

While people tend to be most familiar with the jobs related to flying (e.g., pilot, flight attendant) most of the jobs in the aviation industry take place on the ground. In the next part of the lesson, students will explore some of these careers in more detail.

Next, explain that students will be playing a game with cards.

Organize students into groups of 2 to 6. Groups of four are best, but any number would work. The more groups you have, the more sets of cards you will need to print out.

Provide each group with a set of cards from the Career Trading Cards: Aviation Series reproducible [Google doc] [Word doc] [PDF] [Google folder of individual cards].

Note: You may notice that the cards are colour-coded. These codes represent the six Holland Code career personality types. Knowledge of this code is not necessary for this lesson. See more in the Career Education section in Additional Resources.

Images and Videos

Text and images on the cards can be described in detail to students who have visual impairments.

Explain the rules of the game using the Career Sets Card Game Rules reproducible [Google doc] [Word doc] [PDF].

You can also provide student groups with physical or digital copies of the rules.

Listen to students as they are playing, making note of their use of career terminology. 

Game Variations

• Reduce the number of cards that are dealt to each player to 4.
• Reduce the set requirement to 4 cards.
• Instead of swapping a card, the player receiving a card must lay a card to the discard pile; the person giving the card can take a card from the discard pile or draw pile. If the person giving the card is to the immediate left of the asking player (i.e., will play next) they play as normal after taking a card to replace the one they gave to the player.
• If the game must end due to time constraints, ensure that each player has had a turn in that round. Any player with a set closest to five (i.e., a set of 4) can lay down and add 10 points to their score. If no player has a set of 4, players with a set of 3 can lay down and add 5 points to their score. If no player has a set of 3, the score remains as it was at the end of the previous round.

Language

Students could use text-to-speech software such as Google Read and Write to listen to the rules out loud.

Lead a class discussion to help students consolidate what they learned by playing the card game.

Help students recognize the variety of skills and abilities required for jobs in the aviation industry. Technical and practical skills are usually learned in school, training programs, or on the job. Usually these skills are only used in a specific job. For example, knowing how to use a welding torch is not a skill that is required of a person working in an office setting.

Other important skills are useful, and necessary, for many different jobs (communication, teamwork, problem-solving, speaking/presentation, etc.). These are learned in a variety of settings (in the activities they do in school, in extracurricular activities such as sports and clubs, etc.). While these skills are sometimes referred to as “soft skills”, they are very important to a worker’s success in many jobs and are highly valued by employers.

Discussions

Discussion prompts can include:

• “Did any of the sets include skills that surprised you?”
• “What types of post-secondary education or training was most common? Were the least?”
• “Were there any skills that seemed more common to the jobs on some cards?”
• “Which skills do you think are most difficult to learn?”

To document their new learning, provide each student with a copy of the Jobs in Flight 3-3-3 reproducible [Google doc] [Word doc] [PDF] to complete.

Invite students to share their responses either orally or by submitting to you.

Idea

Students could work on the questions independently or in small groups.

Discussions

Discussion prompts can include:

• “Which career did you find most interesting? Why?”
• “Were there any careers that you would definitely not want to do? Why?”