Shoreline student participating in Phase One of the Washington Aerospace Scholars Program at The Museum of Flight

Phase One class poses with space trainer
at The Museum of Flight
The class includes Olivia Hume of Shorewood

Now in its seventh year, The Washington Aerospace Scholars (WAS) is pleased to announce that Olivia Humes of Shorewood High School is a current participant in Phase One of the 2012-13 program.

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 and with the University of Washington’s Department of Earth and Space Science.

WAS Phase One participants have the option to receive five University of Washington credits in Space and Space Travel (ESS 102) upon on their successful completion of the online WAS curriculum and this course will satisfy the Natural World area of knowledge requirement for graduation from the University of Washington.

The program’s primary goal is to excite and prepare student to pursue careers pathways in STEM fields because the statistics for STEM education in Washington state are grim: Washington ranks 4th in the nation for technology-based corporations and yet 46th for participation in science and engineering graduate programs.

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.

Since 2006, over 1,700 juniors, representing every Washington state legislative district, have participated in the online distance learning curriculum offered by WAS, and over 860 have completed a six-day Summer Residency held at The Museum of Flight. Our Summer Residency alumni association tracks scholars after they graduate high school and over 70% of WAS alumni are pursuing a college degree in a science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM) field.

Olivia was one of 285 student applicants from 117 different public, private and home-school organizations who applied in fall of 2012 to participate, and is now one of the 218 students still participating in the program. 

Having already completed five online lessons, Olivia will spend the next three months continuing to compete for one of the 160 slots available in a Summer Residency session held at The Museum of Flight this 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. If Olivia moves on to the summer residency experience, they 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. 

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 2013-14 program cycle will be available late summer 2013 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.