The Atlantic

The Value of Bringing Drones to the Classroom

As drone-related employment opportunities expand, a Kentucky educational cooperative is finding ways to offer students the relevant training.
Source: Steve Marcus / Reuters

Dozens of high-school students watched as four-legged drones buzzed past each other like yellow bumblebees in a gym at Kentucky’s Hazard Community and Technical College. More than 70 kids from eight schools had spent hours designing, building, and testing their own remote-controlled quadcopter unmanned aerial devices.

Then, it was time to race them.

The springtime competition was the culmination of a year-long high-school class in aerospace and aviation organized by the Kentucky Valley Educational Cooperative, a nonprofit that helps 21 school districts in southeastern Kentucky improve their education systems. Now, the cooperative in Hazard, Kentucky, to help scientists and entrepreneurs hone their drone-related inventions and to prepare students for jobs in the emerging industry.

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Atlantic

The Atlantic4 min read
Hayao Miyazaki’s Anti-war Fantasia
Once, in a windowless conference room, I got into an argument with a minor Japanese-government official about Hayao Miyazaki. This was in 2017, three years after the director had announced his latest retirement from filmmaking. His final project was
The Atlantic3 min readDiscrimination & Race Relations
The Legacy of Charles V. Hamilton and Black Power
This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic’s archives to contextualize the present and surface delightful treasures. Sign up here. This week, The New York Times published news of the death of Charles V. Hamilton, the
The Atlantic6 min read
The Happy Way to Drop Your Grievances
Want to stay current with Arthur’s writing? Sign up to get an email every time a new column comes out. In 15th-century Germany, there was an expression for a chronic complainer: Greiner, Zanner, which can be translated as “whiner-grumbler.” It was no

Related