Out-of-This-World’ NASA Summer Internship for U.S. Students

It is not unusual for college students to take lessons learned in the classroom and see how they can be applied out in the real world. But for some exceptional students, their efforts this summer are literally “out-of-this-world” as they live a 10-week hands-on research or engineering experience interning at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt, Md., just outside of Washington, D.C.
More than 500 students from across the United States are about half way through their participation in Goddard’s 2011 Summer Internship Program. Young men and women from cities such as Spokane, Wash., San Jose, Calif., Boulder, Colo., Lincoln, Neb., Lawrence, Kan., Charlotte, N.C., the Washington, D.C. area and New York City have come to Goddard from 48 of the 50 U.S. states as well as Puerto Rico.

Each intern was placed with a mentor and provided with a scientific or engineering research opportunity matching the student’s educational interests and background as provided in the application. The assigned work may include equipment design and testing, experimental data collection and processing, fieldwork, or computer software development and use. Many projects are cutting-edge of science and technology and are important to future NASA research efforts.

The students are using social media outlets such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr to collaborate with each other as well as share their experience with family and friends back home. To see and hear directly from the students about their summer adventure, go to:

* Twitter: http://twitter.com/NASAGoddard
* Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NASA.GSFC
* YouTube: http://youtube.com/NASAexplorer
* Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/

For members of the news media who would like to interview a student(s), please contact either Maria Acevedo-Rivera at maria.e.acevedo-rivera@nasa.gov or Edward Campion at edward.s.campion@nasa.gov to make arrangements.