WENDOVER — Wendover High junior Manuel Munoz didn't care much about school, let alone college. In the isolated Wendover school, opportunities to boost higher education and career interests can be few and far between.

But what did pique his interest was a chance to go to Virginia and visit Wallops Flight Facility. That experience of seeing things first hand, including a rocket launch, turned it all around for Munoz.

Now a year later he is serious about high school and wants to go to college and pursue an engineering degree.

And this week he is taking his second trip with members of the NASA Club to see the school's third accepted experiment go up in a rocket.

Wendover High, a Tooele District school with only about 170 students, grades seven through 12, is the only NASA Explorer School in Utah and one of only just over 150 nationwide.

"You don't have to be in a big school to be recognized and do well," said George Middleton, a junior. "We can actually be an example to other schools."

Three years ago Wendover was chosen as one of the first 50 schools to be a part of the NASA educational program. Since then the school has been visited by a handful of astronauts and other professionals, and students have gone on a number of trips that not only show them what NASA has to offer but get them excited about math and science.

The school also got a $17,000 grant for science equipment and other materials.

"The opportunities that the club brings to people have really changed students' minds about how they feel about school in general," said Anne Parsons, NASA Club president. "And it makes you think that if you work hard you can get something out of it — it shows that if you set goals and work towards them, it can make a difference."

Aside from being a part of the exclusive group of schools affiliated with NASA, Wendover has had three experiment proposals qualify to go up in a rocket. This week they will be traveling to New Mexico for the third experiment.

Fewer than a dozen experiments are chosen each year to go up in the rocket.

"Not very many people have actually seen a rocket launch, and we get to be a part of that small group of people who have," said Korbin Murphy, a sophomore.

Students in the club wanted to see how the different atmospheric pressures affect the power of magnets — if they will come back stronger, weaker or the same.

The consensus hypothesis is they will get weaker since they will be taken out of Earth's magnetic field, and that could reduce the power of the magnets.

But sophomore Sean Carter, one of the brains that first proposed the experiment, said he thinks the colder air will condense the magnets, making them stronger.