Patrick Taylor Student Wins NASA Scientist for a Day Essay Contest
Patrick Taylor Science and Technology Academy junior Julia Hutto has been selected as a national winner in NASA’s 2019-2020 Scientist for a Day essay contest. Hutto’s win means her essay was posted on NASA's Solar System Exploration website, and Patrick Taylor can participate in a video conference with NASA next spring where they can ask space questions to the experts.
Scientist for a Day challenges students in grades 5-12 to think like scientists. Students write an essay (500 words maximum) explaining which of the three moons they think is most interesting and are asked to explain why. Students examine real spacecraft images of Uranus’ moon Miranda, Neptune’s moon Triton, and Pluto’s moon Charon. Students choose the destination they think would be the best place to return with another spacecraft to learn more. This year's essay contest was sponsored by NASA's Radioisotope Power Systems group, which develops the power technology NASA uses to send robotic spacecraft to explore the outer solar system.
NASA has been running the Scientist for a Day essay contest annually since 2006. This year, they received around 2,000 essays from students in 35 US states. Additionally, 46 countries ran parallel contests, but the US students only competed with the other US students. One winning essay is selected from each grade level (5-6, 7-8, and 9-12) for each of the three topics the students can write about. Some of the winning essays were co-authored by multiple students, therefore a total of 14 US students wrote the nine winning US essays this year.