Athens, Ga. – A team of students from Mountain View High School in Gwinnett County was awarded a Northrop Grumman scholarship in the Junior Engineering Technical Society’s 2011 Tests of Engineering, Aptitude, Mathematics and Science competition recently hosted by the University of Georgia.
Teams from Gwinnett School of Math, Science and Technology and Heritage High School joined the Mountain View High team in the academic competition that had the theme “Smart Energy. Clean Planet.”
The Northrop Grumman scholarship will fund TEAMS conference registration fees for Mountain View High.The Northrop Grumman Corporation is a leading global security company that provides innovative systems, products and solutions in aerospace, electronics, information systems, shipbuilding and technical services to government and commercial customers worldwide
“TEAMS brings math and science to life for students, fostering creativity, critical thinking, teamwork and problem solving,” said John Mativo, an assistant professor in the College of Education’s department of workforce education, leadership and social foundations, and a member of theUGA Faculty of Engineering, who co-directed the competition.
The event featured high school students, grades nine to 12, participating in teams of four to eight members, using real-world applications of math and science to solve some of today’s greatest engineering challenges. There were two parts: a 90-minute, 80-multiple choice question session, and a 90-minute, open-ended, four-question session.
Approximately 30 participating students also saw demonstrations of and interacted with robotics in a presentation by Chi Thai, an associate professor in the department of biological and agricultural engineering and member of the faculty of engineering who co-directed the event. They also learned about and participated in the creation of a virtual reality scenario by Kyle Johnsen, a member of the UGA Faculty of Engineering. Cindy Crawford, a representative of the UGA Admissions Office, also made a presentation.
The TEAMS event was assisted by Nancy Vandergrift, a program coordinator with the UGA Office of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Education and six UGA students from the department of workforce education, leadership and social foundations.
More than 14,000 students across the country participate annually in TEAMS competitions. Questions are aligned with national education standards. UGA is one of two sites hosting the competition in Georgia. The other site is the Atlanta University Center. The next Junior Engineer Technical TEAMS competition will be hosted at UGA on Feb. 22, 2012.
TEAMS competition site sponsors include Harvard University, Itasca Community College, National Education Partnership Alliance, Shell and Starbucks.
For more information about TEAMS, see www.jets.org/teams/. For more information about Northrop Grumman, see www.northropgrumman.com/. For more information about UGA College of Education see www.coe.uga.edu/.