Kentwood’s Brian Lunder will be participating in one of the four Washington Aerospace Scholars summer residency sessions held in June and July at the Museum of Flight in Seattle. Washington Aerospace Scholars is a competitive educational program, based at Seattle’s Museum of Flight, for high school juniors from across Washington State.

Lunder is among the 160 students who qualified for the program from 285 students who applied in November. To qualify for the residency program, they spent five months studying a University of Washington and NASA-designed, distance-learning curriculum via the Internet and have been selected to attend one of the four residencies based on their academic performance on the distance-learning lessons.

During the residency experience students will collaborate on the design of a human mission to Mars. Students are guided by engineers, scientists, university students and certified educators as they plan these missions. The program is designed to inspire students to pursue degrees and careers in science, technology, engineering and math and also learn about mission management, budgets, legal aspects of space exploration, and medicine.

Students will also participate in a number of hands-on engineering challenges and receive briefings from experts in the fields of engineering, science, physics, medicine, project management, risk management, and space exploration, and tour engineering facilities.

Washington Aerospace Scholars will be accepting applications for students and teachers in early September for the 2013-2014 program cycle. Visit www.museumofflight.org/was to download an application. WAS participants must be high school juniors, United States citizens and Washington state residents. The deadline for applications is November 8, 2013.