Four students from Redmond will be participating in the Washington Aerospace Scholars (WAS) summer residency program in June and July at the Museum of Flight in Seattle.

WAS is a competitive educational program designed to connect high school juniors with educational and career opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) through independent learning, hands-on interaction, professional guidance and site-based tours.

Redmond residents Clark Schaefer from Tesla STEM High School, Laurin Gray from Forest Ridge High School and Max Kern and Srihari Mohan from The Overlake School are among 160 students who qualified for the program from 308 students who applied in November.

To qualify for the residency program, each student spent five months studying a University of Washington (UW) and NASA-designed online curriculum and were selected based on their academic performance in these lessons. Through a special partnership with UW, WAS students were able to register to earn five college credits based on completion of the WAS curriculum.

During the residency experience, students will collaborate to design a human mission to Mars with guidance from professional engineers, scientists, university students and certified educators. In addition to the design of the Mars mission, students will compete in hands-on engineering challenges, receive briefings from experts in aerospace and engineering fields, and participate in behind-the-scenes tours, including the Boeing Commercial Airplane assembly plant and the engineering laboratories at the UW.

Now in its eighth year of programming, WAS has had almost 2,000 students participating in its online curriculum and as of this summer more than 1,170 students will have participated in the summer residency. Since the program launched in 2006, students from more than 300 different public, private and home schools have participated in WAS and more than 70 percent of reporting alumni have reported to be pursuing a college degree in STEM. More than 900 WAS alumni attend some of the top engineering colleges and universities across the United States and the first classes of WAS alumni are beginning to enter the STEM workforce.

WAS will be accepting applications for students and teachers in early September for the 2014-15 program cycle. To download an application, visit www.museumofflight.org/was. WAS participants must be high school juniors, U.S. citizens and Washington residents. Teachers must be currently practicing, Washington certified educators and must also be U.S. citizens. The deadline for applications is Nov. 7.

For more information, contact WAS at (206) 764-5866 or WAS@museumofflight.org.