Museum Of Flight Foundation

Programs: The museum of flight in seattle, washington, one of the world's largest private nonprofit air and space museums, hosted more than 650,000 visitors from around the world in 2016. In working toward the vision of being the "foremost educational air and space museum in the world" the museum reaches more than 188,000 on-site and outreach student participants each year, focusing on science, technology, engineering, and math (stem) disciplines. The museum is accredited by the american alliance of museums and is also a smithsonian affiliate. With a mission to "acquire, preserve and exhibit historically significant air and space artifacts, which provide a foundation for scholarly research, and lifelong learning programs that inspire an interest in and understanding of science, technology and the humanities" the museum displays over 175 air- and spacecraft, along with artifacts showcasing aerospace history. In addition to the many permanent exhibits covering the breadth of aerospace history, the museum provides several temporary exhibits each year on a wide range of subjects. The museum also hosts more than 50 public programs each year and opens its doors one evening a month, free of charge, to any visitor as part of its community outreach. In addition to the aircraft on view, the museum maintains the largest aeronautical library and archives open to the public on the west coast, where more than 800 teachers, scholars, authors and filmmakers conduct research each year. The museum also has many aircraft in various stages of restoration, toward which volunteers contributed over 15,000 hours in 2016. In all areas of the museum, volunteers contributed in excess of 101,000 hours of service in 2016. The museum's educational programs support both state and national standards, washington state science learning standards and common core state standards. The museum's educator professional development programs are certified to provide clock hour credits for teachers. More than 25 programs are offered, and include the american camp association accredited aerospace camp experience (ace) summer camp, the nationally acclaimed challenger learning center (clc), the museum-designed aviation learning center (alc), and a wide range of distance learning programs. The museum also hosts the washington aerospace scholars (was), a competitive, collaborative program with nasa is privately funded and intended to keep the nation at the forefront of technical competitiveness. Private pilot ground school and aeronautical science pathway programs are high school classes that provide a pipeline of highly qualified future employees to meet the critical workforce demands for pilots and aviation operations personnel. A program called connections provides free access to museum educational programs and events for underserved students pre-kindergarten through age 18. Additionally, the museum's campus is home to raisbeck aviation high school, part of the highline school district with 400 students and a stem-based curriculum.