Albemarle high ready to roll out MESA program
The Daily Progress/Megan Lovett
Math, Engineering and Science Academy science instructor Steve Bantz (left) and director and math instructor Jeff Prillaman are settling into MESA’s new wing at Albemarle High School.
Published: August 24, 2009
Updated: August 24, 2009
When doors to the $14 million expansion at Albemarle High School open Tuesday, students will get their first taste of the new Math, Engineering and Science Academy.
The state-of-the-art classrooms will provide students a blended study of earth science, chemistry, physics, advanced algebra and pre-calculus. Students will be able to use computers that will make note-taking unnecessary and create almost a “paperless” classroom.
The academy was created to meet the needs of a decreasing engineering population, said its director, Jeff Prillaman. The program will allow students to combine their class teachings with real-world experience.
“It’s not that we’re not teaching kids enough math and science, but we’re not teaching students in the right way,” Prillaman said.
This year, the class will have 48 freshmen and 15 juniors taking three hours of math and science each day. The goal is to have 200 students, 50 in each grade, in the academy during the next few years.
“We have students who are the cream of the crop [in math and science] and we’re really excited about that,” said Steve Bantz, academy science teacher. “We have a lot of challenges that we face in the 21st century and we want to help create the engineers that will solve them.”
Students in Albemarle public schools are eligible to apply for the program and four students outside AHS were selected this year, Prillaman said. Students in Charlottesville and outside Albemarle are not eligible to apply for the program at this time, he said.
“We had a lot of interest in the program and we had to turn students away,” Prillaman said. “We do have a waiting list.”
Once the four-year program is completed, students will have real-world experience through mentoring with engineers in the community and college credit through Piedmont Virginia Community College.
“It’s a real commitment the students are making to the program,” Prillaman said. “[Freshmen] have to stick with the program for two years to get the full credit and they knew that going in.”
According to a 2008 survey by the American Society for Quality, youth and adults surveyed said they are not interested in engineering because they don’t know much about the subject, want a more challenging career or are fearful about the science or math classes needed to succeed. The ASQ promotes quality in products and services.
Prillaman and Bantz said they hope to dispel the myths about math and science while encouraging more female and minorities to join the academy in the future. They plan to take MESA students into the middle schools to promote the program later this year and encourage students to apply.
“We want students to know they can take what they learn in the classroom and apply it,” Bantz said. “We want to help make them critical thinkers who can look at a problem and take all of their knowledge from the classroom to solve it.”
Siblings John and Andrea Oliver, rising juniors, will be taking afternoon classes in the MESA program. Although John has already discovered his love for computer science, Andrea is hoping the program will help her decide if a technical career is for her.
“Listening to John talk about MESA really got me excited about the program,” she said. “I’ve always wondered if math and science is what I should pursue and this will give me the chance to figure that out.”
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Reader Reactions
A) the 14 million was for a dozen new classrooms - it eliminated the trailers—it included four new entrances to the school - 20+ new offices - renovation to another half dozen classrooms etc.
B) The very Rand article one writer quotes http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB1505/index1.html shows a nice graph that shows the STEM workforce is aging and that we will have a shortage in the future == to quote Boyd “The central point of the article is how the MESA program addresses engineering and science education needs in the future”.
I won’t argue that a democratic republic needs citizens who can think well; citizens who are knowledgeable, can gather and evaluate information, and reach sound conclusions that reach beyond parochial self-interest. But the article did state this about MESA:
“The academy was created to meet the needs of a decreasing engineering population, said its director, Jeff Prillaman.“
So there’s the main reason why MESA exists….and my earlier post said that this is myth masquerading as reality.
I believe you are taking the article’s reference to a decreasing engineering population out of context. The central point of the article is how the MESA program addresses engineering and science education needs in the future—in terms of the type of educational experience provided to young people with a talent in math and science (one with mentoring and hands-on experience), and the higher profile given to the fields of math and science as an opportunity for women and minoities traditionally under-represented in these areas.
The article does not state there is an engineering shortage. If there is a “deficiency”, it can be argued from the need for more (not less) creative problem-solvers and entreprenuers—that is, job creators. Having a “surplus” of STEM trained workers is the kind of “problem” that gets resolved positively (unlike, say, a surplus of lawyers).
The mistake is thinking of “scientists” or “engineers” as a generic job classification—I think that is part of what MESA is intended to address.
What would be wrong is pushing a small group of young people narrowly into STEM—there is a powerful argument for a traditional “liberal arts” education—that if you want more physicists, make sure that kids are exposed to literature and history.
Indeed, the problems we face are of such complexity, that our best and brightest ought to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. That argues for strong reading and comprehension, communication, and interpersonal skills—some which can be learned at home, some in school, some through cooperative experiences.
Properly integrated, math and science and technology can be used to enrich the learning experience, not only fostering interest in STEM as a career path, but exposing a general population to basic analytical skills. The technical IQ of our general population is abysmal, and that cannot be all good.
if they didnt sell it as if there were a national crisis they wouldnt be able to hype it! how else will we become ‘world class’ without all the BS? it would be nice to see the true benefits of this expense. will anyone check eight years from now and see the bump up in engineering tract students graduating college?
It’s one thing to teach students well. Who could possibly be against that?
It’s quite another thing, though, to make the argument that the main reason for the $14 million math and science academy at Albemarle High School (MESA)is the “decreasing engineering population.“ That is simply incorrect.
A series of studies over the last half-dozen years make clear that the United States is not suffering a decline in its STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) workforce. Quite the contrary.
For example, a 2004 RAND study commissioned by the government found “that despite concerns about potential shortages of STEM personnel, particularly in engineering and information technology, there is little evidence of such shortages in the past decade or on the horizon.“
In December, 2005, Gary Gereffi and Vivek Wadhwa (Duke University) wrote in “Framing the Engineering Outsourcing Debate” that the United States produces a “highly significant number of engineers” and other STEM workers to remain globally competitive.
And in 2007, Lindsay Lowell and Harold Salzman found that “colleges graduate far more scientists and engineers than are hired each year” in the United States. (see Into the Eye of the Storm)
It may be nice to have technologically-advanced classrooms, and it’s beneficial to teach students well.
But there is not engineering “deficiency;“ that’s myth masquerading as reality.
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