Kieran Bronson-Doherty, a junior at Decatur High School and son of school board member Amye Bronson-Doherty, has been named one of the 150 juniors from across the state whose academic performance on the WAS Phase I curriculum qualified them for WAS Phase II, the summer residency program.

The Phase II is a six-day summer residency where four teams of scholars work together to plan a human mission to Mars with support from engineers, scientists, university students and educators. Each session also includes briefings from aerospace professionals, tours of engineering facilities and hands on engineering challenges involving model rocketry, robotics, landing devices and payload lofting.

To make it to the second level, students participated in distance learning with NASA-designed curriculum covering the history of space exploration, the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station, the Moon and Mars. From January through May the scholars completed ten lessons, submitting quizzes, math solutions, essays and graphics concerning these topics every other week. Of the 260 students who participated in the first phase, only 150 made the academic requirements to move on to the second state.