PAULA LABONTE
On February 20, 8AAT coordinated local schools Blue Sky Academy in Cornwall and Laggan Elementary School, Laggan, ON and Carleton Aerospace Astrophysics Radio Club to participate in Canadian Space Agency Astronaut, David St. Jacques’ virtual presentation.
8AAT is a student operated business that aims to educate and empower students as future innovators in Science Technology Engineering Mathematics, STEM. Their executive is an amateur radio community and STEM supporters possessing both academic and private industry experience.
In the Cornwall, Alexandria, Maxville, Hawkesbury corridor up to 2/3 of households earn less than $27K annually, the project empowers local youth with real-world STEM applications, opening new career possibilities and improves their chances for admission to post-secondary education demonstrating to prospective universities and colleges a determination and commitment to a career path in STEM. Ideally, some post-secondary graduates will remain in the Cornwall region to contribute to a new generation of tech-based industries with local and national benefits.
The rational is that small-town and rural regions have the highest incidence of poverty in Canada, are extremely under-represented in national STEM competitions and have intelligent, hard working students looking for STEM experience to explore career paths. 8AAT will provide a solution.
In another ongoing project North Dundas High School in Avonmore and 3 other high schools, St. Aquinas HS in Russell, ON, Arnprior District High School, and Cavagnal Venturers in Hudson, QC are participating in an academic STEM Cubesat project. Students will spend 4- 8 months designing, building, testing and then deploying a cubesat satellite model on a high-altitude balloon, 30km altitude. The students’ scientific experiments on board the cubesat will be collected when the cubesat returns to Earth and the data will be sent for a research publication.
8AAT is hosting an open house at the Cornwall Public Library on Thursday Feb 22 at 6pm for anyone interested in the March Break or Summer 8AAT STEM Camps for youth ages 12 – 18. March Break and Summer Break camp promoting STEM for ages 12 to 18, March 11 – 15 and July 2 to Aug 30 at the Royal Canadian Legion, Cumberland St, Cornwall. Registration open. www.8aat.space.
Students of the High School, March Break and Summer Camps also train with 8AAT to obtain an ISED Basic Amateur Radio Licence and are encouraged to join their local amateur radio club. Seaway Valley Amateur Radio Club in Cornwall is one of 5 amateur radio clubs in the Ottawa Valley.
