High school students in Lancaster ISD, a Texas High Performance Schools Consortium district, recently watched their project of the past year — a Cessna 182 — take off from a local airfield.

The airplane construction project was part of hands-on STEM challenge from Captain Barrington Irving’s Experience Aviation: Operation Build and Soar program, and the nonprofit Wings of Hope. Experience Aviation is a nonprofit organization that uses aviation to build STEM skills in students and direct them toward careers in aviation and other STEM-related fields.

Wings of Hope will dispatch the airplane on medical missions to poor communities worldwide. The first stop is Nicaragua.

Read more in an article by WFAA.