LOWER LAKE — Savannah Koch, a student at Lower Lake High School, recently returned from a week at NASA, where she planned a simulated mission to Mars and experienced life as an engineer and scientist.
Koch was one of 84 female high school students from 29 states who visited Johnson Space Center in Houston to participate in the Women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) High School Aerospace Scholars project.
NASA sponsored two six-day summer camps for rising high school seniors during late June and early July. The girls worked in teams with female NASA mentors to develop mission plans for launching to Mars, living and working there and integrating the many components necessary for a successful planetary mission. They worked within the confines of a fictitious budget and built several small mockups of vehicles to demonstrate a successful launch and landing of the Mars spacecraft.
“It was an amazing experience, being able to explore so many careers related to space, while working and bonding with this group of girls who are all intelligent and dedicated and who are all so interested in space exploration,” Koch said.
“On top of that, the exposure to the rigors of planning a manned space mission and the practice in dealing with them was an experience that I will carry with me and grow from.”
The participants were selected based on completion of interactive, online lessons focused on space exploration and mapped to national education standards, academic merits and geographic diversity.
The program encourages girls to pursue science, technology, engineering and mathematics degrees and exposes them to the real-world applications of STEM careers at NASA. For more information, visit http://go.usa.gov/dsP.
