2011 Distinguished Service Award

Presented to: Dr. David Winfield

Citation: For years of voluntary devotion in the mentoring and education of future generations of navigators in the D.C. area public school system; and as the co-founder and principal participant of the Washington, D.C. Section’s Student Activities Committee.

Starting in December 2002, the Washington, D.C. Section embarked on a mission to increase the educational outreach of the ION to students in the D.C. Metropolitan area. After considering several alternatives, the membership determined that a Student Activities Committee (SAC) was the preferred method of introducing the field of navigation to local high-school level students. Dr. David Winfield and Dr. Terrance McGurn volunteered as co-chairs of the SAC from 2003 through 2005. Dr. Winfield has been the chair of and principal volunteer for the SAC since 2005.

The SAC of the ION Washington, D.C. Section has conducted navigation-related activities at Walt Whitman and Watkins Mill High Schools in Montgomery County, MD. SAC activities involved classroom activities conducted at a SMART Board (an interactive, electronic whiteboard that can enhance instruction and learning). Eight Garmin GPS 72 and four Garmin GPS 76 handheld receivers, purchased with ION educational outreach funds, were used in the classroom in simulation mode and outdoors at a football field. SAC members David Winfield, Terence McGurn, and Franck Boynton installed a GPS monument at the Watkins Mill High School in 2004. For environmental and earth science classes, the activities were “Survey Your Football Field” and “Treasure Hunt.” For physics classes the activities were “Physics in GPS” and “Skymap.” In “Survey Your Football Field,” teams of students at each corner record latitude and longitude at the corners of the field. Data taken simultaneously at the corners are differenced to compute the sides and diagonals of the field. Still in the planning stage is a video game called “Ships and Shoals.” Dr. Winfield has consistently provided the initiative, the longest and most consistent effort, almost all of the content, and all but one of the subsequent activities with the high-school students. He has represented the ION and the engineering profession valiantly in his efforts to educate future generations.

Note: Some of the materials developed by Dr. Winfield are posted at http://sites.google.com/site/gpsnavigationnow