The Math Engineering Science Achievement (MESA) program just started at EHS with urging from math teacher Stephanie Henderson, who participated in the program in high school and advised the program as a teacher at East Mountain High School.

The program offers scholarships for tutoring, fundraising, community service and other types of participation in MESA activities.

The program is organized and run by students, with elections in Estancia held two weeks ago.

President Natalie Stokes, a senior, said she was thrilled to get involved with the program.

"This is so new and exciting," she said. "Nothing like this has ever been done in our school before. And a lot of kids feel the same way. Our membership is even larger than the senior class as a whole."

Stokes, who also serves as secretary of the senior class, said it's important for young people to get involved in the community. The program gives students a chance to do just that, and more.

MESA activities include building towers out of spaghetti and marshmallows, and racing cans using balloons and static electricity.

"There are a lot of hands-on activities," Henderson said. "There was a ton of involvement and support from the school."

New Mexico MESA Inc. funds the program, including buses for field trips. Last week students attended a conference on robotics, and Oct. 1 they went to the Mind Research Institute at UNM and watched a live MRI.

Vice president and EHS junior Miranda Millar attended the UNM trip and loved it.

"It was so interesting," she said.

Millar got involved with MESA to enhance her math and science skills, but the program teaches much more than that, she said.

"The whole idea isn't just about math, science and engineering," Millar said. "It gets us more involved in the school and in the community."

The program gives students a chance to tutor other students in math and science, which the kids are excited about, Henderson said. "It helps them earn early incentive reward points," she said.

"We want to do everything we can to keep kids interested and to keep them coming back."

So far, that hasn't been a problem, Henderson said. There are 65 students currently registered in the program. Two weeks ago, the recently elected board met with Henderson and other advisors Rhonda Tully and Colleen Leach to discuss plans for the rest of the year. These included a T-shirt fundraiser and a "treats for troops" campaign where the students collect and send care packages to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Estancia MESA program is looking for chaperones for field trips, guest speakers in the fields of science, math and engineering, and team leaders to get the teams ready for competition.