About four High school students in Kent received scholarships to participate in the Washington Aerospace Scholars Program.

The program provides opportunities for high school students interested in science, technology, engineering and math. Now in its sixth year, The Washington Aerospace Scholars (WAS) announced the following students have been accepted into Phase One of the 2011-12 program:

– Jacob Wagner of Aviation High School

– Sean Hansberry of Kentridge High School

– Lee Tillotson of Kentwood High School

– Nicholas Tillotson of Kentwood High School

The students 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 of 2012. 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.

The WAS program is a free, competitive, science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education program for high school juniors from across Washington State and is affiliated with NASA Johnson Space Center’s National High School Aerospace Scholars program with partner programs in Texas, Virginia and Idaho. Its primary goal is to excite and prepare student to pursue careers 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.

Students moving 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 science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), but participants also learn to develop their writing, resume building, interviewing and presentation skills along with an understanding 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 Governor 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.

Washington Aerospace Scholars applications for the 2012-2013 program cycle will be available late summer 2012 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.