MESA Day gives young scientists chances to succeed

This Friday, inside the Peter W. Stott Center, hundreds of middle and high school students will display their math and engineering skills while learning about various science career paths–all while having fun.

The students will build rockets made out of straws, compete in a math scavenger hunt and drop eggs housed in containers designed to protect them from atop the student recreation building.

These events will be a part of the Math, Engineering and Science Achievement (MESA) Day, the annual young-engineer event. At the event, students from sixth to 12th grade can design various projects, compete with other students and learn about science and what it is like to be on a college campus.

Some of the other daily events at MESA Day, which runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., will include building trebuchets, or catapults made from PVC piping and a balsawood bridge design contest. There will be an awards ceremony at the end of the day honoring the top designers.

MESA is an outreach program that encourages minorities, women and underprivileged students to study sciences. It is designed to mold future scientists out of students who may not always get the chance to pursue that career path.

“MESA is much more than just a math and science playground for kids,” said David Coronado, director of the Oregon chapter of MESA.

Coronado, 30, knows a thing or two about school outreach programs and the plethora of choices they can offer students who might not normally be exposed to those avenues. He hopes that this year’s event will continue to inspire while also widening avenues of career choices for students.

The pre-college academic program is housed at the Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science. MESA started in 1970 in California, and has since broadened to seven other states. Oregon has had a MESA program for 19 years.

Coronado is expecting about 450 students from 16 different schools in the Portland-area to attend. Being that Coronado is the first, and only member of his family to attend college, he cannot stress enough how vital programs like MESA truly are.

“If it wasn’t for outreach programs like MESA or Upward Bound, I would have never had the opportunity to pursue college,” Coronado said.

Coronado said that this year’s event could be the best yet. Some new exercises and hands-on projects–like the straw rocket, or “strawket”–should continue to inspire and motivate students to make choices in their lives.

“That’s the mission statement for the year,” Coronado said. “To give students access and the proper tools to make choices. That is what the entire event is about, choices.”

Coronado grew up in what he said was a bad neighborhood of Pomona, Calif. Being raised in a neighborhood like that, he said, can make it extremely difficult for a young child to break free from their surroundings. He said programs like MESA eventually helped him attend and graduate from Occidental College in Los Angeles.

One thing MESA does, Coronado said, outside of teaching math and science, is provide students with information on life after high school.

“Again, it’s all about choices,” Coronado said. “We want to talk with students, not at them. We really care for these kids and will help them with anything we can. MESA is a support group on many levels.”

Coronado said that after previous MESA days, teachers have called his office, thanking him for his work and speaking ecstatically about the positive and lasting the changes to their students’ attitudes toward school.

“Seeing those students who have worked so diligently for the past four or five months be recognized for their work is truly amazing,” Coronado said. “The glow in their eyes is all the thanks and appreciation I need to continue doing what I do.”

Get involved

MESA is looking for volunteers for MESA Day. For more information go to www.mesa.pdx.edu or contact Jamie Jones at [email protected] or 503-725-4665.