USC student Chandra Cooper of Bishopville is spending most of the summer conducting climate research at the National Weather Service's Columbia Weather Forecast Office in West Columbia.

She's one of five South Carolina college students spending part of the summer in one of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration laboratories or programs as part of the Hollings Scholarship Program.

The program, named after Ernest F. Hollings, a strong supporter of science education, began in 2005. The internship assignments started this year.

The program began May 30 and ends the first week of August with a series of workshops in Silver Spring, Md. The scholarship's first class has 110 students.

Other South Carolina students are tagging sharks and studying their behavior at the South West Fishery Science Center at La Jolla, Calif.; testing toxicity of chemical contaminants at the National Center for Coastal Ocean Science in Charleston; participating in shellfish restoration at the National Marine Fisheries Service Coastal Fisheries Laboratory in Narragansett, R.I.; and working on a killer whale photo identification project at the South West Fisheries Science Center in Long Beach, Calif.

"These scholarships provide the hands-on training and experience to encourage undergraduates to pursue study in the NOAA fields, such as atmospheric or oceanic science, research, and technology," said Louisa Koch, director of NOAA's Office of Education, which funds the $3.9 million program. "We are very pleased with the quality and the quantity of scholarship recipients in this first year."

The NOAA Hollings scholarship program is designed to increase undergraduate training in oceanic and atmospheric science, research, technology, and education and foster multidisciplinary training opportunities.

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