Eastern Shore high schoolers shadow NASA Wallops Flight Facility professionals

 A few lucky high schoolers from the Eastern Shore today got the chance to shadow professionals from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility.

Students from Accomack, Worcester, Somerset, and Wicomico counties  followed chemical technicians and engineers and learned anywhere from how to test water samples for ammonia to what goes into building a rocket from scratch.  

 Students also toured the different facilities and got to talk to professionals of the educational requirements needed in their careers. NASA officials hope that exposing high schoolers to different fields in science will help them better determine their path in college.

Mark  Culver, a chemical technician at Wallops says, “In school you can really be put off by the sciences. It’s just stuff you have to memorize but coming into a lab kind of puts it into perspective. Like there is people who actually need to know the levels of E. Coli in the water or why these two interactions between chemicals work.”>

NASA will be offering summer programs in mid June for high school students who are interested in flight and rockets. They also have internship opportunities year round for college students as well.