As many of you may know, one of our members, Mary Kadooka of the University of Hawaii, operates a program called HISTAR every summer for Jr. high and High school students where they are taught math and physics concepts using astronomy. One of the goals of the program is to encourage these students to start astronomy projects during the HISTAR session and then carry those projects on to the local science fairs. This year produced an exceptional list of student/scientists/astronomers. A recent article in the UofI IfA Newsletter highlights some of those students:
http://www2.ifa.hawaii.edu/newsletters/article.cfm?a=685&n=55
Please notice the titles of these projects and their application to the variable star arena. Our very won Gary Billings mentored Zoey Fox, an O'ahu student, on her binary star project.
Congratulation to all of these students, their mentors and the program organizers.