Wor-Wic Community College students Ebony Jenkins of Snow Hill and Robert McCarroll of Salisbury were selected to travel to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., to participate in the National Community College Aerospace Scholars project (NCAS). The two were selected to join 40 other community college students from across the nation to be part of the project. To become a participant, students must have at least nine credit hours in a STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) discipline. Jenkins is a science transfer student at Wor-Wic and McCarroll is studying manufacturing computer-aided drafting. NCAS is a four-month-long project, including a three-day on-site event at the Marshall Space Flight Center. The program offers students from across the nation the opportunity to interact with NASA engineers and other participants as they learn more about careers in science and engineering. While at NASA, the students formed teams and established fictional companies interested in Mars exploration. Each team was responsible for developing a prototype rover, designing a 3-D model of their rover and forming a company infrastructure, including budget, communications and presentations. The on-site experience at NASA included a tour of facilities and briefings by NASA subject matter experts. “We were assigned to NASA engineers as our mentors and they showed us how some of the parts were made,” said Jenkins. “Also, we were able to go into the astronaut chambers to see how limited the space was for them to work in.” The NCAS is a project based on the Texas Aerospace Scholars, originally created as a partnership between the Johnson Space Center and the Texas education community. Both projects are designed to encourage community college students to enter careers in science and engineering in order to join the nation’s high technology workforce. With this project, NASA continues the agency’s investment in educational programs that attract and retain students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, disciplines critical to NASA’s future missions.

AEROSPACE SCHOLARS.

Robert McCarroll of Salisbury, left, a manufacturing computer-aided drafting student at Wor-Wic Community College, and Ebony Jenkins of Snow Hill, a science transfer student, recently traveled to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., to participate in the National Community College Aerospace Scholars project.