Now in its seventh year, The Washington Aerospace Scholars (WAS) has announced that the following local students have been accepted into Phase One of the 2012-13 program:

• James Gentry of Fife High School

• Franz Hernandez of Bellarmine High School

• Andrew Min of Thomas Jefferson High School

• Vivek Ramanujan of Thomas Jefferson High School

• Kangsu Suh of Thomas Jefferson High School

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.