High School Internships

Willie spent his internship working with graduate student Zhibin Wei, and learned about coal and oil.

Working in the clean box to prepare soil samples for analysis.

Presenting research results at the end of the summer.

Collecting water samples in the field.

A field trip to Hopkins Marine Laboratory in Monterey to explore the tide pools.

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At the School of Earth Sciences, high school students spend 8 weeks in the summer working in different laboratories. The students work on existing research projects and are supervised directly by graduate students, post docs and lab managers. They volunteer for 15-30 hours per week during the summer. This program enables graduate students to serve as supervisors, prepares high schools students for college and serves to strengthen the connections between Stanford and local high schools.

The high school internship program is an annual program and will be offered in 2012. The application is released in late January and is due March. You will find the application on this page at that time. Late applications are not considered; there are always more qualified students than placements. 

January 26, 2012: Application Available
March 23, 2012: Applications CLOSED
March 31, 2012: Letter of Support Due

about May 1, 2012: Acceptance letters sent out

Interns are expected to work during regular working hours during the week.  On Wednesdays from noon until 2 pm or all day, interns meet for lectures, activities and field trips.  Please check Frequently Asked Questions for more information.

What high school interns have said about their experience

• I loved actually analyzing the data and seeing if the experiment worked out in the end. To see if all of the hard work finally paid off in the end was very gratifying.
• I learned the overall process of working in a lab and the details of a graduate project. I enjoyed working under the lab hoods.
• I've never worked in a lab before and I wanted to experience doing that, and also wanted to put the knowledge I learned in school into a realistic context.
• I... became more confident in the usage of chemicals.

What high school interns said they did in during the summer

• Prepared equipment for field work
• Ultrasonic extraction of coal samples using organic solvents, roto-evaporation, funnel separation, column chromatograph and compound quantification
• Learned ARC-GIS 9.0 software by doing ESRI’s online training
• Soil preparation for CN analysis
• DNA extractions from environmental samples and cultivated strains, PCR screening of genes from various bacteria, RFLP (fingerprint) analysis of 16S ribosomal RNA genes, DNA quantification and visualization
• Entered data and graphed data
• Discussed background material after reading articles

Read the blog by some of the 2011 high school interns.

Please check the Frequently Asked Questions section before the student who is interested calls or sends an email.