Here are some suggestions for how to implement this technology.

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1. Social Studies: Have students participate in kinesthetic cartography: Draw a map of the world in chalk and have the students “migrate” or conquer areas to show the spread of different empires. Photograph or record their movements to chronicle historical changes.

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2. Language Arts: Illustrate different points of view. Take photos of little-seen areas of the school, and have students write guesses about where the photo might have been taken.

3. PE: Send the drone up during PE class to record students demonstrating a particular play. Have students watch the footage and discuss where they should have been and what they can do better.

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4. Math: Create a gigantic graph. I spoke to Jim Bentley, a middle school teacher and a Buck Institute for Education national faculty member who has recently seen the value in using his new school drone to teach math. He told me, “Filmmaking is a key ingredient in our classroom. We recently obtained a drone to capture aerial footage for films we produce in conjunction with our city’s integrated waste department. But I realized that if we built a large four-quadrant graph on the playground with chalk, we could also use our drone to practice landing on different ordered pairs. With a drone, the sky’s the limit for what we could learn.”

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5. Science: Look at the micro world and the macro world and the patterns repeated in each.

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6. Community Building: Produce a video. We’ve seen lip-dubbed videos on YouTube. You no longer need to rent a crane (expensive) or borrow a wheelchair—as I once did—to use as a cheap, but bumpy, Steadicam. Drones allow you to see the school from above, and that can be very celebratory.

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7. Current Events: Debate. What about privacy issues? What is the future of our workforce if companies like Amazon use drones for deliveries? Are drones a good technology, or are we one step closer to automaton domination?

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8. Social and Emotional Learning: In terms of social and emotional learning, drones give students glimpses of themselves and their place in the world. This technology could help students visualize themselves as being a part of something greater while also helping them keep their me-me-me-ness in perspective. For tweens and teens at least, feeling a little “smaller” might help their decision-making in such a self-centric time of life.