Mathematical Applications Shine to Encourage Rising Scholars (MASTERS) is an after-school math enrichment program where Spelman College and Morehouse College students travel to M. Agnes Jones Elementary School and KIPP Strive Academy weekly and help 3rd -5th grade boys and girls improve their math skills by learning why the subject is important. Throughout the year, the participants apply their basic math skills by working collectively on fun and interactive small projects that require math in order to complete. Some of these projects include, a physics egg drop project, creating and analyzing surveys, learning basic concepts about economics, and engineering small bridges. The main purpose of MASTERS is to explicitly demonstrate to the students how and why math is important, to motivate students to work hard in school and to perform well in math, and to clearly explain to students the opportunities available to them if they work hard in school and particularly in math.
MASTERS has demonstrated to be sustainable as it is currently on its fourth consecutive year at The Potomac School in McLean, Virginia when the program was first launched during the 2011-2012 academic year while the founder, Christina Fennell C’2016 was a senior in high school. Currently, this program occurs on its second year at M. Agnes Jones Elementary School and its first year at KIPP Strive Academy in Atlanta, Georgia.
While this program focuses on mathematics, there is a diversity of majors that the volunteers concentrate on in their respective schools. The volunteers are math, economics, computer science, biochemistry, engineering, psychology, and biology majors. As a result of this array of majors, the volunteers are able to enrich MASTERS from a plethora of angles.
Hopefully in the future, MASTERS can be implemented in more schools in Atlanta and in the country.