Integration Of Mathematics, Science And Competition To Promote Engineering Educational Development

As high school sports have a vast following of students and parents, so should science club competitions attract similar audiences to develop math and science education. The Mesilla Valley Christian School (MVCS) Science Club has competed in numerous events promoting teamwork in designing, building and operating robots, internet science projects and chemical remediation equipment against schools around the country. The key to developing math and science skills is to put the passion of competition in with the discipline of acquiring and applying knowledge. The club has a solid foundation of an elementary extra-curricular math and science program and a secondary pre-engineering course. Mid and High school students will surprise you with their talents and creativity if put in the right motivational package. The MVCS Science club has successfully integrated math and science into several applications involving engineering. They have applied their skills in several competitions and have won the Boosting Science, Engineering and Technology (BEST) robotics competition at New Mexico State University(NMSU) and gone to the SW region competition in Dallas at Southern Methodist University. The club won trips to Washington DC in the US Army’s eCybermission for science problem solving and placed in NMSU’s international environmental design contest. It was also recognized as the Association of Christian Schools International science program of the year for 2005. This paper will give the details of the program, including the interaction of MVCS and NMSU, and the integration of math courses, science courses and the pre-engineering course at MVCS into the program. It will also include statistics on how many of the student participants entered university level engineering programs after their graduation from high school.