Three Redmond High juniors selected for first phase of Washington Aerospace Scholars Program
Published 12:50 pm Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Three Redmond High School (RHS) students have been selected to participate in Phase One of the Washington Aerospace Scholars Program (WAS) at The Museum of Flight in Seattle.
Sohum Chaudhary, Eric Kammers and Ishan Ranade were among 297 students from 110 different public, private and home-school organizations who applied to participate in WAS in November 2011. They will spend the next five months competing academically for one of the 160 slots in a Summer Residency session held at The Museum of Flight in June and July. To qualify for the Summer Residency, students must satisfactorily complete ten online lessons, consisting of research essays, space-related math problems and detailed graphics that illustrate their ideas.
In its sixth year, WAS provides opportunities for high school students interested in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). It is a free education program for high school juniors across Washington state and is affiliated with the NASA Johnson Space Center’s National High School Aerospace Scholars program and has partner programs in Texas, Virginia and Idaho.
Its primary goal is to excite and prepare students to pursue career pathways in STEM fields using a NASA-designed, distance-learning curriculum, which covers topics such as the history of human spaceflight and the future human exploration of Mars. Since 2006, more than 1,400 juniors, representing every Washington state legislative district, have participated in the online distance learning curriculum offered by WAS and more than 700 have completed a six-day Summer Residency held at The Museum of Flight.
Five-time shuttle astronaut and WAS Foundation board member, Dr. Bonnie J. Dunbar, said WAS students “are the generation who will solve the challenges of the present and create future dreams.”
The program is designed to address the fact that although employment in Washington’s private sector technology industries has quadrupled since 1974, the state ranks last among tech states in science and engineering graduate program participation.
Students who move on to the summer residency experience will collaborate with other student participants on the design of a human mission to Mars guided by professional engineers, scientists, university students and certified educators.
The WAS program is designed to inspire students to pursue degrees and careers in STEM, but participants also learn to develop their writing, resume building, interviewing and presentation skills along with an understanding for mission and budget management and the legal aspects of space exploration.
There is no cost to students to participate in the WAS program thanks to the continuing support from Gov. Chris Gregoire, the Boeing Company, the Washington NASA Space Grant Consortium, the GenCorp Foundation, BAE Systems and many individual donors.
The Museum of Flight partners with WAS to host both the program administration and the Summer Residency sessions.
