Two Kansas high school students competitively earned renewable scholarships up to $20,000 to Kansas Wesleyan University in the STEM Vanier Scholarship Competition by showing their expertise in science, technology, engineering or math.
Regan Rhodes from Mullinville, Kan., did a project that explored the world of ecospheric studies in national parks that she had experienced across the United States. She attends Greensburg High School and intends to major in ecospheric studies and community resilience, and participate in cross country. She is the daughter of Pamela and Tony Rhodes.
Karsen Smith from Hoyt, Kan., delivered a presentation that explored computer coding and programming language through a raspberry pi experiment.
He attends Royal Valley High School and plans on majoring in software engineering and information management. He participates in wrestling and band and is the son of Lisa and Kevin Smith.
The STEM Vanier Scholarship Competition was open to graduating high school seniors and transfer students. This was the first year KWU hosted a scholarship component to its STEM Visit Day. Six students entered the competition in which they had to submit an application, provide their transcripts and ACT scores, and send one letter of recommendation from a STEM instructor.
They also had to create and present a poster display in answer to the prompt: “Describe a STEM-related topic that fascinates you, and explain why it interests you.” The presentations were reviewed by KWU STEM faculty.
