Our Mission and Goals

The Education Rainbow Challenge (ERC) is to be a catalyst for progress in the education of inner city youths and a venue for corporate funding and volunteers to help the public schools in the Greater Houston area.

Ours goals are to:

• Promote interest and development in mathematics and science for students in grades 3 to 8 
• Encourage and reward our teachers
• Enable corporate partnership with our public schools

What does Education Rainbow Challenge Do?

ERC hosts a semi-annual challenge to promote mathematical development and interest in science. We plan to:

• Conduct math competition for average students in inner city schools – “average students” are students in regular programs and not in gifted/talented programs
• Provide hands-on science experiments to stimulate curiosity and better understanding of basic science concepts
• Current focus is in HISD, but with sufficient funding and support, we can expand to include other school districts in Greater Houston Area

What do Volunteers do?

100% of the work is done by volunteers. Volunteer activities include proctoring and judging student individual and team math tests as well as monitoring the chemistry experiments. Lunch will be provided. Shifts are available. 

What Happens at the Challenge?

Over 500 students will compete for prizes as they work as individuals and in teams to try to solve a set of mathematical problems. There will also be a science fair where students will get to do cool hands-on chemistry experiments designed by American Chemical Society.

• Each school is allowed to send one team of 5 students per grade to the competition
• The contest consists of two sections: individual computation and team problem solving, with each section contributing 50% towards the final school team score
• Independent judges score and evaluate the team solution
• The winning schools of each grade are determined by the highest combined score of both individual and team contests
• Teachers of the top 3 teams in each grade receive a cash award
• Highest scoring students in each grade win a gift certificate

Individual Computation Section

• Each student will be allowed 30 minutes to compete a total of 50 multiple choice questions
• The score of all individual members of the team will be combined and the highest combined score will win this round
• Discussions among students, using calculators, and other hand held devices are not allowed
• If a student is in the process of writing an answer when the time is called, the problem immediately prior to this attempt will be considered the last problem competed

Team Problem Solving Section

• Each team will be assigned a room where all team members will meet to solve the assigned problem with group discussion. Calculators and other hand held devices are not allowed
• Each team is allotted 30 minutes to come up with a solution and then present to a panel of judges for scoring

Chemistry Experiments

• 5 to 6 different experiments are setup around the gym
• Each student will rotate from station to station to get hands-on experience on each of the experiments
• Each student will get a prize after completing all the experiments

How can I sign up?

The next Education Rainbow Challenge math tournament is coming up. Sign up to become a volunteer or sponsor today!