Amidst a swirl of dust and a cadre of camera phones held to the sky recording the action, the Washington Army National Guard CH-47 Chinook helicopter touched down Jan. 21 on the football practice field at Emerald Ridge High School in Puyallup.

The day's lesson in math, science and aviation technology had arrived.

The morning arrival - which brought out nearly the entire student body and some elementary school classes from nearby - was all part of aviation technology teacher Jeff Coleman's yearly arrangement to bring his curriculum to life.

"It's a huge positive motivator for the classes," said Coleman, who's invited a military helicopter to the school as an instruction tool for the past five years. "It gets kids that may not normally be interested in aviation the spark to see what the possibilities are and they see that average folks are doing these things and that maybe there is a possibility for them."

After touching down, the pilots and crew mingled with students while explaining the science and math behind the twin-rotor helicopter and talking about their flying experiences.

"A lot of people look at this and it just looks wrong because the rotors intermesh, but it's an awesome aircraft to fly and I'm just glad to be part of the (community outreach) program," said Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jon Cole.

Students sat in the cockpit and walked through the cargo bay, snapping photos all the while. Emerald Ridge sophomore Nels Nielson even brought a hand-held radio that allowed him to listen in on the communication between pilots as the nearly 25,000-pound helicopter landed.

"It is amazing ... it is the reason I'm here in the aviation program," said Nielson, who's in the process of earning his glider license. "I've been around aviation my whole life and this is like a dream for me."

The flight supplemented some in-class presentations by Capt. John King, who Coleman routinely invites to come speak to his students.

"When I talk to the class it's usually about the physics and the foundation of math and science that goes into this," King said. "It's one of the things we talk about if you want to be a pilot. What do you have to do, what should you study."

While King and his fellow soldiers gladly answered the routine questions about how fast the Chinook flies (196 mph) and where the machine gun mounts are located, they also touched on subjects that can help students start thinking about their future in aviation.

"Most of the pilots don't have to practice (the physics of the helicopter) because somebody has already engineered the whole thing," King said. "But you have to understand how it works so if something goes wrong on the helicopter we know enough about the physics, electronics and the mathematics about it that we can go to our backup system - which is right in between our two ears."

That knowledge is something Coleman hopes to continue to foster through the demonstration as long as he is teaching.

"It's fun to be able to provide that opportunity for students to see that," he said.

"It doesn't get any less exciting for me."