They really warmed up to this field trip.
Student from Kensington’s IS 62 and the Brooklyn Science and Engineering Academy in East Flatbush had a blast learning about a solar-powered airplane at John F. Kennedy airport on June 15, according to an organizer. The middle-schoolers especially enjoyed meeting and doing science experiments with the jets’ eco-conscious creators and pilots, who are travelling around the world with only the sun as fuel, she said.
“They’re not just scientists — they’re adventurers,” said Rebecca Lucore of Covestro, a company that makes energy-efficient technology and hosted the event.
The Kings County scholars were among 300 students from around the city who scored a chance to tour and learn about Solar Impulse 2 and meet with its Swiss creators Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg.
This week marks the flyboys’ 14th stop in their journey around the planet since starting in 2015 in Abu Dhabi. Technical difficulties delayed the trip in Hawaii last year, but they started again on April 22 — Earth Day — and have stopped in five other states to power up the craft’s solar panels and let the pilots out of the tiny cockpit to stretch their legs.
Lucore said kids are the perfect people to hear their gospel of green technology, because they are the future innovators, and they need to know that there are exciting jobs in science, tech, engineering, and math that don’t involve wearing a white coat or being cooped up in a lab all day.
“We do have some people like that who do research, but there are so many opportunities for them, and science plays such a role in other careers, too. Working in teams, adapting to change, critical thinking, creativity — those are skills that are important for all of our workforce, not just for STEM careers,” she said.
