Shodor Scholars Program

The Shodor Scholars Program in Computational Science (SSP) is a science, mathematics, and computing scholarship program for rising high school freshman and sophomores. The program provides a three-week, academically-intensive education and research program to a competitively-selected group of up to 15 students. Students use advanced computational science technologies, techniques, and tools to study a wide variety of scientific events. Students are provided structured and open-ended learning opportunities in computational science. The program culminates in a research opportunity in which small teams of students choose an area of scientific interest, identify an interesting problem, and then develop and communicate a computational solution to that problem.

During the three week workshop, the following topics will be presented:

• General overview of computational science
  1. Using other people's models
  2. Modifying other people's models
  3. Building models from scratch
• Basic numerical methods
• Scientific programming
• Model validation and verification
• Commmunicating science using computational science
• Research methods incorporating computational science

Students will be expected to work in teams to solve a variety of small-scale modeling problems, using a variety of computing tools. Opportunities for informal and formal presentations are provided throughout the course of the program. The final week is devoted to the identification of a larger problem, the design and implementation of a computational solution, and presentation of results.