2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The U.S. aerospace industry faces a critical talent shortage due to aging workforce, increased retirement rates, and fewer skilled STEM professionals in training. This industry is especially vulnerable because it relies heavily on advanced technical talent to support complex missions and foster innovation. It is essential to increase the number of graduates in STEM fields, especially in Aerospace Engineering field. With the support from NASA, a community college partnered with a four-year university to develop and implement a series of hands-on learning modules aiming to increase students’ interests in Aerospace Engineering and the number of students pursuing Aerospace related majors, which would create a talent pipeline for the aerospace industry. Most of the hands-on learning modules were created by integrating NASA-relevant concepts or contents with existing kits available in the market. In the last three years, ten different learning modules were implemented in seven different community college courses, which impacted more than 600 community college students. In this paper, the detailed design of each learning module is introduced. Each learning module normally lasts one to two weeks allowing required processes to be completed by the students. The implementation process of the learning modules in different classes is also discussed. The authors collected students’ feedback after they completed the learning modules, which focused on the learning modules’ impacts on students’ interests in Aerospace Engineering. In addition, the authors collected student data, including GPA (before and after completing the learning modules), course grades, retention rate, and graduation rate and timeline. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of students’ feedback on different learning modules and students’ academic performance before and after completing the learning modules. A group of community college students who were from the same departments but did not participate in the learning modules are used as a control group in analysis the impact of the learning modules. The results show that most learning modules had positive impacts on both students’ interests in Aerospace Engineering and students’ academic performance. However, the impacts vary among different learning modules, which may be related to the module itself or the way the module was implemented. Finally, the authors share the lessons learned during the last three years related to module implementation and continuous improvements.