The Shodor Scholars Program in Computational Science (SSP) is a science, mathematics, and computing scholarship program for rising ninth through eleventh graders. The program provides a two-week, academically-intensive education and research program to a competitively-selected group of up to 16 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.

The model at right shows a sample computational solution to how epidemics are studied. In this model, we study three populations of people: susceptible (healthy) people, infected people, and people who have been infected but are now recovered. By changing parameters such as the infection probability and recovery time, we can explore the behavior of this epidemic over a period of time.

During the two 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.