Nine high school students from Haywood, Jackson and Swain counties are working as science interns in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park this summer.

Their work is supported by a grant received by Friends of the Smokies from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund with the aim of encouraging promising students to pursue careers in the sciences and medicine.

The interns are working in small groups assisting scientists to collect data, much of which is related to the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory, an inventory of all living species in the park — from slime molds to spiders — a project that holds particular interest and potential for the biomedical industry.

The $165,000 grant courted by Friends of the Smokies — a non-profit organization that supports conservation, education, and other park priorities — is funding the program for three years.

The interns are continuing multiple projects from the last two years, including monitoring the effects of ozone on native vegetation, long-term population studies of snakes and salamanders, and a study of the effects of an arson fire on the invertebrate community. They will also be starting several new projects, mapping the park’s largest remaining stand of butternut trees, a species on the decline because of an exotic fungal disease.

“The program aims to spark an interest in the sciences in Western North Carolina youth, starting them down paths that may eventually lead to their returning to the parks as graduate students or professional scientists who will have a greater understanding of the Park and its resources,” Park Superintendent Dale Ditmanson said.

The information they collect will help the National Park Service understand the resources it is charged with protecting and to practice science-based management of the park.

The participating students are: Nick Reed, Elizabeth Kilgore and Kaitlyn Kluge of Smoky Mountain High School; Earl King of Swain County High School; Jordan Lezard and Jessie Smith of Cherokee High School; Dewayne Maney of Pisgah High School; and Elizabeth Moser and Maggie Smith of Tuscola High School.