ODU and NNPS Maritime Engineering and Environmental Studies Academy opens
Posted: September 17, 2025
The Maritime Engineering and Environmental Studies Academy, which is a collaborative lab school partnership between Old Dominion University and Newport News Public Schools, welcomed its first class of students this fall.
The new program focuses on maritime engineering and maritime environmental studies and is housed in the Oyster Point business area. It becomes the latest Magnet and Specialty Program offering open to all NNPS students, with the application period for 2026-2027 opening on October 31 and closing December 15.
MEESA participants can earn dual enrollment credits towards ODU while preparing for college and career opportunities available in various fields related to the maritime industry.
"We're excited to add the MEESA program to NNPS and offer a unique maritime integrated curriculum," said Darrell Pankratz, NNPS executive director of secondary teaching & learning and K-12 programs. "We are partnering with ODU to prepare students for future opportunities in the maritime industry."
MEESA focuses on student-guided learning through STEM-science, technology, engineering and math; experiential learning; guided inquiry; design thinking; career and technical education; internships and job shadowing opportunities. It's classrooms are called studios and they're full of equipment and tools available for an entirely unique learning experience.
MEESA is a two-year lab school for eleventh and twelfth graders. They attend mornings at the program site and the remainder of the day at their home schools with transportation provided. The current first class is all eleventh graders going through the first-year curriculum of introduction to logistics and engineering, taught through an environmental literacy lens.
"It was a new opportunity and experience," said Cameron Ahrens, who is particularly interested in maritime engineering. "So I wanted to come here and experience it. When I got here, I realized it was a lot more than what I thought it was."
Students, called innovators, jumped right in during the first week of school. They quickly started on extensive projects of building a mini boat and organizing the school's library that will continue until winter break.
"These are very complex projects with many diverse activities and layers of learning with our higher education and industry partners," said Tirzah Jayes, MEESA program administrator and lead teacher. "The curriculum is woven into the components of the projects."
Instructional time is designed to mimic what happens in industry, so the innovators are always multi-tasking and integrating various components into their learning. They are empowered to make decisions as they track their progress and make changes as they go, according to Jaynes.
Sanaa Speller already knew she wanted to be an operations manager at a port, so the program's start was right on time for her.
"When I found out about this program, it really had everything to do with what I wanted to do," Speller said. "It gives me a lot of opportunities to meet new people and engage with new people and communicate with people. So I’m really excited."
After going on a tour and hearing details, Amialyn Lipsey applied for the program. She enjoys tying hands-on activities into the curriculum and doing lots of experiments.
"Now that I’m here and know more about it, I definitely want to be a part of the environmental engineering side of it," Lipsey said. "I think that’s really cool. And we’re going to start doing a lot of projects in both logistics and engineering.
"We also gain outside experience as well. We do a lot of team building activities, so we do speaking in front of the class."
Cameron Morgan wants to work in marine biology and said his mother always tells him he's good at engineering things. so he thought MEESA would prepare him well for college.
"It's more hands-on," Morgan said. "It feels slightly more freeing. And honestly, I don't know if it's just because I go from school to school, it makes my school days feel shorter. Here, even though it's longer than most classes obviously, it doesn’t feel long because it's enjoyable because of what we do."
Design thinking as a culture gives everybody's opinion an equal voice, according to Jaynes.
"That’s how we're different; that's innovation," Jaynes said. "That's the research and development part of a lab school is that we are innovating these ideas. This is not just voice and choice; this is personalized learning.
"And they're building careers and so the whole ideas is they're in charge of their own career path and they have to learn in a way that's meaningful to them."
The first group of innovators is taking pride setting the stage for those who will come after them.
"We're going to get everything all cute and organized so the other batch of juniors that comes next year will have an even better time than we did," Ahrens said. "I've been trying to talk to some sophomores at my school into thinking about joining us."
