Did you know we learn a lot when we play? Play is natural, play is educational, play is fun! We all learn in different ways and to keep up in today’s rapidly-changing and connected world, we believe play will help us adapt. One way to do this is to connect students’ passions with real-world experience in order to foster exploration of interests inside and outside of the classroom.

We are launching a summer of learning that will utilize existing educational programing across our community partnerships and create linkages that encourage and challenge young people to step outside their comfort zone and explore new activities. So many great learning assets exist in our community such as the Orlando Science Center, Melrose Center at the OCLS Downtown Library, and the maker-studio Factur where you can learn how to sew, stargazing, how to 3D print, woodworking, and flight simulation.

An awesome grant will directly finance the kick-off event to promote our summer program to community education stakeholders by demonstrating these ideas of playground learning. On March 23, we will gather 30 education stakeholders and embark on a journey to move through our city, learning how to fly a drone. The event begins at the Melrose Center, where we get hands-on experience flying mini drones. We will then board the Lymmo downtown and arrive at the classroom in Lynx Central station where we will participate in a lecture on the legality of flying drones from an attorney who practices drone law. Next we will SunRail to Mad Cow Theatre to engage in performance activities to investigate the moral and ethical implications of drones in our society today. Finally we will Juice bicycle to the Dr Phillips Center where we will fly full-size drones with assistance of professional pilots and capture high definition video/photo footage to be used in future summer of learning activities.

We have a strategic plan and support letters available if Awesome Foundation would like to review them.