Laurin Gray, a Redmond resident and a junior at Forest Ridge of the Sacred Heart High School, has completed in phase one of the Washington Aerospace Scholars (WAS) program at The Museum of Flight in Seattle.
The WAS program is a competitive science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education program for high school juniors from across Washington state and is an affiliate of NASA Johnson Space Center’s National High School Aerospace Scholars program.
A partnership with the University of Washington also gives WAS phase-one participants the option to receive five University of Washington credits in Space and Space Travel (ESS 102) for their successful completion of the online phase-one curriculum. These credits satisfy the Natural World area of knowledge requirement for graduation from the University of Washington.
Gray applied in fall of 2013, along with 308 student applicants from 112 different public, private and home-school organizations, to participate in phase one of WAS. They have spent five months completing 10 online lessons. Gray has successfully competed for one of the 160 slots available in a summer residency session held at The Museum of Flight and will attend this June.
To qualify for the summer residency, students must satisfactorily complete 10 online lessons, consisting of research essays, space-related math problems and detailed graphics that illustrate their ideas.
Founded in 2006 by five-time NASA shuttle astronaut Dr. Bonnie J. Dunbar, the WAS program’s primary goal is to excite and prepare student to pursue careers pathways in STEM fields. By using a distance-learning curriculum, designed in partnership with NASA and the University of Washington, WAS gives students the opportunity to explore topics such as the history of human spaceflight and the impacts of space weather on future human exploration of the universe.
WAS applications for the 2014-15 program cycle will be available late summer 2014 at www.museumofflight.org/was.
WAS participants must be high school juniors, United States citizens and Washington state residents with a 3.0 minimum grade-point-average.
