Press release:

The Washington Aerospace Scholars program is pleased to announce that the following students will be participating in one of the four WAS Summer Residency sessions held in June and July at the Museum of Flight in Tukwila. Washington Aerospace Scholars (WAS) is a competitive educational program, based at Tukwila’s Museum of Flight, for high school juniors from across Washington State.

Mahekdeep Singh from Burien, Aviation High School
Marie-Alexis Mayor from Burien, Bellarmine High School
Abigail Jarve from SeaTac, Aviation High School

These scholars are among the 160 students who qualified for the Washington Aerospace Scholars Summer Residency program from 283 students who applied in November. To qualify for the residency program, they spent five months studying a University of Washington and NASA-designed, distance-learning curriculum via the Internet and have been selected to attend one of the four residencies hosted at The Museum of Flight this summer based on their academic performance on the distance-learning lessons.

Through a special partnership with the University of Washington, WAS students were also able to register for an optional fee of $237 to earn five UW credits in Space and Space Travel -ESS 102 (a course which satisfies the Natural World area of knowledge requirement for graduation from the University of Washington) based on their successful completion of the WAS curriculum.

During the residency experience, they will collaborate with the other student participants on the design of a human mission to Mars. WAS scholars are guided by professional engineers, scientists, university students and certified educators as they plan these missions.

The WAS program is designed to inspire students to pursue degrees and careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) but the students are divided into teams which also require them to learn about mission management, budgets, the legal aspects of space exploration, and medicine.

In addition to the design of the human mission to Mars, they and the other WAS scholars will also participate in a number of hands-on engineering challenges. These challenges included design, construction and deployment of robotic rovers, model rockets, lander devices, and payload lofting systems.
Summer residency participants will also receive briefings from experts in the fields of engineering, science, physics, medicine, project management, risk management, and space exploration, such as Dr. Bonnie J. Dunbar, NAE, retired NASA astronaut. They will also visit Everett, WA, for a behind-the-scenes tour of the Boeing Commercial Airplane assembly plant, (including the new 787), tour Aerojet’s Redmond facilities, and the engineering laboratories at the University of Washington.

Returning for 2013, interested parties can follow the Summer Residency experience through Twitter. Incorporating Twitter into the Aerospace Scholars program is a fun way for the scholars to keep their parents, family and friends back at home informed as to what they are doing during the week. WAS will be posting daily events to give parents an update on what is going on, and students will be able to post as well giving their own insights of the program. If you already have a Twitter account, you can follow us with the username @WASMission2Mars.

All room and board are provided to students free of charge by the Washington Aerospace Scholars Foundation. The program has been supported by Governor Chris Gregoire, The Apex Foundation, The Aldarra Foundation, The Boeing Company, Microsoft, Battelle, The Washington Space Grant Consortium, GenCorp and individual donors. The Museum of Flight hosts both the program administration and the summer residency sessions. Additional partners include NASA Johnson Space Center for curriculum development, the Washington State Governor’s Office, and Washington State Legislators.

As we celebrate our seventh year of programming, we are proud to report that over 1,680 students have participated in our online distance-learning curriculum and as of this summer over 1,000 students will have participated in our Summer Residency program. Since the program launched in 2006, students from 299 different public, private, and home school organizations in 158 public school districts have participated in WAS. Our alumni association tracks scholars after they graduate high school, and we are excited that over 70% of our reporting alumni have told us that they are pursuing a college degree in a science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM) field. We now have over 860 WAS alumni attending some of the top engineering colleges and universities across the U.S. and they continue to amaze us with updates on their progress. Last spring, the inaugural class of 2007 began to graduate from college and we look forward to learning their post-collegiate plans.

Washington Aerospace Scholars will be accepting applications for students and teachers in early September for the 2013-2014 program cycle; visit www.museumofflight.org/was to download an application. WAS participants must be high school juniors, United States citizens and Washington State residents. Teachers must be currently practicing, Washington State certified educators, and must also be US Citizens. The deadline for applications is November 8, 2013.

For more information, please contact Washington Aerospace Scholars at 206-764-5866 or waaerospacescholars@museumofflight.org.

Founded in 2006, Washington Aerospace Scholars is an educational program for high school juniors from across Washington State. The program emphasizes science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) and encourages students to consider careers in these fields.