The UCI COSMOS Astronomy and Astrophysics Cluster: A Summer Program for Talented High School Students

COSMOS is a month-long, summer residential program in science and engineering for high school students held each year at four University of California (UC) campuses. Its goals are to expand the scientific horizons of our most talented students by exposing them to exciting fields of research and encouraging them to pursue STEM careers. Students live on campus and choose to study one of seven or eight different subject areas called "clusters." We run the extremely successful Astronomy & Astrophysics Cluster at UC Irvine (UCI). Over four weeks, students take lecture courses in astrophysics, perform computer lab experiments, and complete a research project conducted in a small group under the supervision of a faculty member or teaching assistant (TA). Here we discuss our curriculum, lessons learned, and quantify student outcomes. We find that putting on a summer program for high school students is highly rewarding for the students as well as the faculty and graduate students.