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NASA Historian to Speak at Ribbon Cutting Ceremony
Summary:
The CREC Academy of Aerospace and Engineering will hold a ribbon cutting ceremony for its new building on October 6 at 1:30 p.m., and Bill Barry, NASA’s chief historian, will be the guest speaker.
The CREC Academy of Aerospace and Engineering is an award-winning interdistrict magnet school that serves students in grades six through 12, and it is now located at 1101 Kennedy Road in Windsor. Previously, middle school students attended school on Blue Hills Avenue in Bloomfield, and high school students attended school at the Learning Corridor in Hartford.
The new CREC Academy of Aerospace and Engineering building is 150,000 square feet, and it opened to students on the first day of the new school year—September 2.
“The ribbon cutting ceremony signifies a great moment in the history of our school, because this space will be home to our country's future leaders in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics,” said Principal Paul Brenton. “Our talented, diverse, and capable community of students, teachers, and families has always made the CREC Academy of Aerospace and Engineering a unique place, and we are proud to have a school building that reflects all that our school has to offer.”
The school’s curriculum focuses on aerospace and engineering, and the building includes several features that reflect this theme. A zinc-clad curved “wing” contains middle school science laboratories, and a quarter-barrel roof with an exposed truffle structure at the gymnasium references the design of an airplane hangar. There’s also a pixilated image from the Hubbell Telescope at the Lagoon Nebula that wraps the exterior of the school’s auditorium in phenolic panels, and operable photovoltaic louvers are used to maximize exposure to the sun for energy collection. Overall energy usage and generation, along with water consumption, is monitored by a building management system, and the data will be displayed on televisions that will be installed throughout the school. In addition, the entrance to the school’s media center mimics NASA’s “Mission Control.”
“At CREC, we have been fortunate to be able to build a number of state-of-the-art buildings with innovative learning spaces,” said CREC Superintendent Dina Crowl. “As a leader in science, technology, engineering, and math, the CREC Academy of Aerospace and Engineering’s theme-specific building will afford students the opportunity to explore, inquire, learn, and participate in hands-on experiences in an authentic learning environment that was built specifically to their needs.”
In 2014, CREC’s Academy of Aerospace and Engineering was recognized by U.S. News and World Report as the No. 1 secondary school in the Connecticut, and it was ranked the 15th best secondary school in the country. It has also been consistently recognized by Magnet Schools of America.
