On Friday November 22, Eastern Shore Community College hosted the 2nd week of the Aerospace Academy of the Eastern Shore (AAES) on campus in Melfa, welcoming special guest, 2nd District Congresswoman Jen Kiggins. Kiggins addressed the group of area 8th graders in attendance about the ever-growing opportunities before them in the aerospace industry.

The two-day event invited over 400 eighth-grade students in Accomack and Northampton counties to celebrate the launch of the AAES, an aerospace-focused laboratory school powered through collaborative partnership between Old Dominion University, Eastern Shore Community College, Accomack County Public Schools and Northampton County Public Schools.

The AAES provides an innovative learning environment to give students in Accomack and Northampton counties access to the knowledge, skills and abilities needed to succeed in STEM fields. Aerospace and its adjacent industries are identified as growth sectors in the commonwealth, and the school leverages business and industry partnerships to explore pathways into aerospace information and security systems and aerospace engineering and explorations.

Both installments of the kick-off event featured:

• Construction and launch of rockets in collaboration with NASA Wallops
• Drone coding and learning about package delivery with Virginia Space Grant Consortium, Sentinel Robotics Solutions, NASA Langley Research Center and Drone Up.