Emilie Baxter, second year engineering teacher, is responsible for the bright red helicopter that landed behind North Garland’s athletic field house on Feb. 19. Baxter is in charge of the high-school level Project Lead Way, an engineering course exclusively offered at only two schools in GISD, Jackson Technology Center and North Garland High School.

Looking in the sky, hiding their faces from the flying debris, students from the Project Lead the Way class watched the helicopter hover over the field.

“I think it’s really cool to see helicopters in person, you never really know the mechanics of it,” senior Nancy Tran said. “Engineering is basically learning how things work, so by getting to see the helicopter up close and talking to someone who is very knowledgeable about helicopters, it gives our class the opportunity to learn more and understand how things around us work.”

The helicopter landing was an interactive lesson for Baxter’s course, especially created for National Engineering Week, which is February 17 to 23.

“This week my goal for the kids is to give them a broad horizon of what engineering is all about,” Baxter said.

Baxter has a week full of activities consisting of college engineering students, civil engineers and engineering companies coming to talk to the students. The helicopter was the first activity on Baxter’s agenda; she was lucky enough to know a guy who flies helicopters for a living.

Baxter’s dad, Scott Baxter, is the assistant chief pilot for Bell Helicopter. She asked him to do a live showing of the helicopter for National Engineering Week; he was more than willing.

“Because I had the connection, it just seemed like a really great and cool way to show my kids about engineering and how things work,” Baxter said.

A helicopter is a huge piece of machinery, and it takes a lot of different engineers to build a helicopter. 

“You can teach a kid anything but if you don’t show them real world examples, it’s like they don’t believe you,” Baxter said.