18 January 2009

New Learning Centre opens at the FAA Museum

Henry Allingham interviewed in December 2006 as part of the Their Past Your Future project.

Every year, the Fleet Air Arm Museum at Yeovilton welcomes over 14,000 school and college students to participate in a wide range of National Curriculum based activities.

These range from Evacuation Specials, where primary school children dress in 1930s clothing and learn what it was like to be evacuated from home, to science and technology based activities with college students.

Thanks to the generous sponsorship of AgustaWestland a new learning centre will open within the Museum on Jan 20 th . The new facility occupies some 80 sq metres in what was formally the V&A Exhibition room. It has been fitted with new desks, chairs, flooring, projection equipment and a bank of computer desks fitted with programmes explaining the theory of flight.

The museum has been heavily involved with the Heritage Lottery funded "Their Past Your Future 2" project and has produced a set of web based resources that help improve young peoples' knowledge and understanding of the impact and contemporary significance of conflict.

The project has filmed interviews with numerous veterans including Henry Allingham, the world's oldest veteran who died last year at the age of 113.   All 15 education packs comprising the films and supporting resources will be available for teachers and students to complement their history and citizenship studies. They will also be fascinating to anyone with an interest in aviation.

Attending the opening of the AgustaWestland Learning Centre, as it will be named, will be participants in the "Their Past Your Future 2" project, trustees from the Museum and dignitaries from AgustaWestland. The opening will be officiated by Admiral Terry Loughran, Chairman of the Trustees.

For more information go to: www.fleetairarm.com