GILROY
– Four Gilroy High School students have qualified for the
California Math Engineering and Science Achievement (MESA) state
finals, in computer, science and speech competitions.
GILROY – Four Gilroy High School students have qualified for the California Math Engineering and Science Achievement (MESA) state finals, in computer, science and speech competitions.
Nate Barmore, Steve Bennett, Luz Gonzalez and Rebecca Perez will journey to University of California Santa Barbara for the academic organization’s annual competition Saturday. The Mustangs qualified for the finals by beating out students from 14 other Bay Area schools last month in competitions at University of California Santa Cruz.
“There are some pretty rigorous preliminary and regional competitions,” MESA spokesperson Teri Lee said. “This is a pretty big deal for them.”
MESA, established in 1970, is an academic enrichment program open to all students, but focused on supporting high achieving students in low socio-economic brackets. Roughly 50 students make up the local club at Gilroy High.
As for the state finals, Barmore and Bennett are competing in Web design, where students can use only HTML (hypertext markup language) programming to create a working, user friendly and innovative Web site. HTML is the most fundamental Web site programming language.
“They aren’t even allowed to use a mouse or word processing program to cut and paste text, it’s intense,” said Matt Hungerford, a GHS math teacher and MESA advisor.
Gonzalez and Perez will compete in the model science competition Saturday. The girls have built a model of the human eye and researched the function of its various parts.
Perez will do double-duty Saturday, after qualifying for the oral presentation competition. She will give a three-minute speech on why students should join MESA. Her oratory skills landed her a second-place finish last month at regionals.
MESA says around 500 students will compete in Saturday’s finals.
Competition won’t cease after the state finals, Hungerford said. Next week, MESA will sponsor a remote-operated vehicle competition where students have to design and build a robot that can perform tasks underwater.
Contests include using the robot to pick up a piece of PVC pipe from the bottom of a pool and using the robot to hold and release a balloon underwater.
“It’s a program that doesn’t have any direct scholarship opportunities, but it looks really good on résumés when students apply for scholarships or are trying to get into school,” Hungerford said. “What we’re trying to do is find students with interests in math and science and get them thinking about going to college, especially if they normally wouldn’t consider that as an option.”
