April 13, 1998
Contact: Timothy McKernan, (619) 594-2588
SDSU Hosts Math and Science Competitions for Southland Students
More than 500 students in grades 6 through 9 from school districts throughout Southern California will gather at San Diego State University on April 18 from11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for a special event sponsored by the statewide Mathematics, Engineering and Science Achievement (MESA) program. Junior MESA Day will feature a variety of hands-on math and science competitions in the Engineering building on the SDSU campus.
Students from San Diego, Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Orange counties will race handmade mousetrap-powered cars, test the strength of stick bridges they construct, build tall structures from straws and masking tape, take math and essay exams and participate in a speech contest. Junior MESA Day participants are the winners of preliminary contests held earlier this year in their localities.
“MESA Day combines education and entertainment,” said Robert Goode, director of the MESA program at SDSU. “The hands-on competitions encourage students to pursue their studies in math and science.”
SDSU President Stephen Weber and Pieter Frick, dean of the College of Engineering, will be on hand to kick off the Junior MESA Day awards ceremony at 2:15 on the Hardy Tower lawn.
MESA is a program of the University of California, designed to increase the number of educationally disadvantaged students who pursue college degrees in engineering and other math-based scientific fields. MESA offers 60 programs that serve more than 21,000 students from kindergarten to college.
For more information, call Timothy McKernan (619) 594-2588 or Robert Goode (619) 594-4197.