STEM: A year in review

It’s been nearly a year since iFLY revamped our already popular schools’ packages, to enhance the educational content of our workshops by expanding on the obvious links to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths) to ensure iFLY provides the ultimate school trip!

With British Science Week fast approaching (9th-16th March), we’ve taken the opportunity to review our packages, and how schools and youth groups have responded to them over the last year.

The iFLY STEM workshops are created around the National Curriculum as to guarantee maximum educational worth and engagement from pupils, with us offering different workshops for KS 1+2, and KS 3+4.

To ensure all questions can be answered (and we do get asked everything!), our workshops are delivered by local science professionals. In Manchester, Rob Johnston of Manchester Tutors is one of our regular hosts and was eager to convey how iFLY’s STEM Packages blow children’s minds!

“Every young person at some time in their lives will dream of flying".

Admittedly the dream also usually involves wearing a red cape & shiny boots and battling a super-villain, but the flying part is definitely in there!

At iFLY, that magical part of the dream - the flying part, not the red-cape part - becomes a reality. And as wonderful as it is to see the faces of all the young people when they've just been flying, what is especially rewarding about running a Science Workshop at iFLY, is the endless curiosity young people have about all the science behind flying. Especially when it means flying without the aid of a 747 passenger-plane, hidden wires, or Hollywood special effects!

"What holds me up? What stops me hitting the roof? What might speed me up? What might slow me down?"

Answering these kinds of questions - and much better questions that the young fliers come up with to keep me on my toes - is what makes the iFLY Science Workshops one of the most enjoyable ways to explore the how? and the why? and the what?

But we don't answer the questions with equations and Wikipedia. None of that stuff! We answer these important questions using a hair-drier, a ping-pong ball, a hefty text-book (don't panic, we never open it; we just drop it!), paper-planes, pipe-cleaner parachutists (!), a laser-timer, and a boxful of Lego racing-cars that the inquisitive young fliers get to build themselves. And then (the really fun part) get to RACE themselves! Every pair of eyes in the room is glued to the results of that laser-timer. Yes, aerodynamics, forces, lift, drag, and gravity are all important. That goes without saying. But nothing is as important as your car being at the top of that leader board!

Every young person dreams of flying. And, it seems, dreams of winning a race where their car is powered by nothing except a hair-drier!”

iFLY is always on the lookout for new schools, scout and youth groups we can provide our workshops to:

✔️ Two flights per child 

✔️ 60min STEM workshop with direct links to the national curriculum

✔️ Free flight for the teacher

iFLY’s STEM packages get full marks!

For British Science Week, we’re offering 15% off the ultimate school trip!
Contact our schools team at schools@iflyworld.co.uk to discuss further!