Andrew Han from Mount Tahoma High School and Kazuhiko Griffin and Shawna Sherwood from Stadium High School are among 247 students participating in Phase One of the Washington Aerospace Scholars (WAS) for 2009-10. This phase includes distance learning with a NASA-designed curriculum covering the history of space exploration, the Space Shuttle, the International Space Station, the Moon, and Mars.
WAS is a Museum of Flight program, and students are current juniors in high school who have a minimum GPA of 3.0, are Washington residents and U.S. citizens and have access to the Internet. The WAS program emphasizes science, technology, engineering and math, and encourages students to consider careers in these fields.
From January through May, the scholars will complete 10 lessons—submitting quizzes, math solutions, essays and graphics concerning these topics every other week. Scholars will independently select a topic of interest for a final project combining an essay with a graphic. They are also competing for a space in one of our four summer residency sessions.
Phase Two of WAS is a six-day summer residency experience for 160 students. Selection is competitive and centers around performance in Phase One of WAS. In each residency session, 40 scholars are selected to work cooperatively to plan a human mission to Mars with support from professional engineers/scientists, university students and certificated educators. Each session also includes briefings from aerospace professionals, tours of engineering facilities and hands-on engineering challenges involving model rocketry, robotics, landing devices and payload lofting. The daily schedule is quite full, and the students lodge in double rooms at a local hotel under the supervision of certificated teachers. Travel, lodging and meal expenses are provided to participating students and teachers thanks to the WAS Foundation and our many generous donors.