| National Math and Science Initiative Announces Winner of Video Competition |
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PRESS RELEASE March 18, 2009 Student Videos Prove Math and Science Can Be Fun DALLAS -- An animated video with a hip-hop soundtrack called "Crank Dat Calculus" has been selected as grand prize winner of the FILMS (Fun Is Learning Math and Science) Video Competition sponsored by As the top national winner, Grenier will receive a $3,000 college scholarship. His award will be presented today by U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello, D-Va., at a NMSI convocation at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. Grenier also will receive an all expenses-paid trip to DreamWorks Animation in Los Angeles. Grenier currently is enrolled in AP* Calculus, AP English, and AP History classes. Two other finalists tied for second place: "Trapezoidal Sum," produced by Matt Albritton and Seth Biazo at Springdale Har-Ber High School in Springdale, Ark., and "Math and Science are F=µN!," produced by Robert Henry Schmidt and Nicholas A. O'Connor of Northampton High School in Northampton, Mass. The second place winners will receive scholarships of $2,000. The video competition invited students in Advanced Placement math, science, and English classes supported by NMSI grants to make short videos showing why math and science are fun. The national winners were selected from finalists from six states that are implementing the vanguard AP Training and Incentive program. The first, second, and third place winners from those states received cash scholarships from NMSI as well as graphing calculators from Texas Instruments. The judges for the national competition included Dr. Michael Brown, former Nobel Prize winner for medicine and the Paul J. Thomas Professor of Molecular Genetics and Director of the Jonsson Center for Molecular Genetics at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas; Tom Luce, the CEO of the National Math and Science Initiative and former Assistant Secretary of Education; Ed Leonard, the "The goal of this competition is to foster increased enrollment in AP math and science classes," said Luce. "We want high school students to see the ‘cool' side of math and science education, as portrayed by their peers. Eighty percent of the jobs of the future will require an educational background in math or science, so it is imperative that we increase students' interest in these subjects to give them a competitive edge in their future careers." The National Math and Science Initiative (NMSI) was launched in 2007 by top leaders in business, education, and science to reverse the United States' troubling decline in math and science education. Major support for the national initiative has come from the Exxon Mobil Corp., the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, with in-kind assistance provided by IBM and Perot Systems. Contact: Rena Pederson, NMSI Communications Director (214) 665-2523
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, or Molli Samuels, Cooksey Communications, (972) 580-0662
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. *AP and Advanced Placement Program are registered trademarks of the College Board, which was not involved in the production of, and does not endorse, this product. |
the National Math and Science Initiative, a nationwide effort to raise American math and science achievement. The winning video was produced by Travis Grenier, a junior at Franklin County High School in Rocky Mount, Va.