JPL Is Pleased to Announce the Final Selection of the Teachers and Students to Participate

NASA and the Phoenix Mars Mission are pleased to announce the teacher and student participants for the Phoenix Student Intern Program (PSIP). Among the teams selected to participate are teacher Kathy Hill and two students from Boulder Creek High School in Anthem, Ariz. Over the coming year they will work alongside scientists and engineers on the Phoenix Mars Mission, which launches this August.

PSIP is a program designed to give high school students and their teachers active experience in the areas of science, engineering, mathematics and technology. Thirteen teams, each consisting of one teacher and two students, were selected from across the country following a national application process. These student-teacher teams will each work with a member scientist of the Phoenix Science Team.

"The Phoenix Student Intern Program will allow these students to work directly with the Phoenix Science Team, participating in experiments that our researchers will be conducting during operations on the surface of Mars. We hope this will inspire them to consider a career in the sciences," said Peter Smith, principal investigator of the Phoenix Mars Mission.

The team from Boulder Creek High School will be working with Dr. William Boynton of the University of Arizona in Tucson, Ariz. to learn the geology of Mars, the mechanics of the lander, and the software needed to analyze the data that will be returned to Earth during the mission. During this time, each team will develop, with their scientist mentor, a specific research project to be completed during the time the lander is operating on the Martian surface in the summer of 2008. The teams will each spend one week in residence at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Ariz., working in the Science Operations Center with their scientist mentor and participating in the day to day operations of the lander. PSIP students and teachers will also have many opportunities to tell others what it is like to work on a Mars mission. They will convey their experiences to other students, teachers, and members of the public through many outreach activities and events, such as presentations, webcasts, and publications.

Phoenix is the first mission of NASA's Mars Scout Program of competitively proposed, relatively low-cost missions to Mars. The University of Arizona leads the Phoenix mission, with project management at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and development partnership at Lockheed Martin. International contributions are provided by the Canadian Space Agency, the University of Neuchatel (Switzerland), the University of Copenhagen (Denmark), the Max Planck Institute (Germany) and the Finnish Meteorological Institute.

Contact:

Cassie Bowman

Phoenix Student Interns Program Coordinator, NASA Ames Research Center

650-269-2787

-or-

Sara Hammond

Phoenix Mars Mission, University of Arizona

520-626-1974