BELFAST – Troy Howard Middle School mathematics teacher Meghan Southworth believes that today’s kids have the ability and dedication to excel in math and provide the nation with leaders in the field.

Southworth of Winterport is one of three Maine teachers named finalists in the 2005 Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching, the nation’s highest honor for secondary school teaching in those fields. The winners from each state will be announced in March.

“It’s pretty exciting,” Southworth said Thursday. “I was thrilled just to be nominated in the first place.”

Southworth, a graduate of the University of Maine in Orono, has been teaching mathematics for 10 years, the past nine to eighth-graders at Troy Howard. She teaches both general and advanced classes. Her pupils study concepts that most ninth- or 10th-graders wrestle with.

“Young adolescents are in transition from being concrete lower-level thinkers to more abstract upper-level thinkers,” she said. “I try to provide students with concrete, hands-on experience to understand more abstract concepts.”

Nationwide scores in math assessment tests have indicated that many pupils are having difficulty keeping pace with the subject’s demands. Southworth said she is aware of those results but believes that things are changing for the better.

“Any math teacher would agree with that concern,” Southworth said. “Part of that is because today’s world requires different skills and different ways of doing things than it did 50 years ago. Yet, many math classes are taught using the same pedagogical skills as then.

“Fortunately, that is changing. I’m optimistic because I see a lot of changes happening. There is a lot of rich cooperation within this district about what our expectations are for students creatively and developmentally, so that we’re not all trying to teach the same things over and over every year,” she said.

Established by Congress in 1983, and administered for the White House by the National Science Foundation, the Presidential Awards allow each state to select up to three math and science teachers as finalists. The goal of the awards is to recognize highly qualified teachers.

Also selected as finalists for the 2005 awards are Steven DeAngelis, a science teacher at Maranacook Community High School in Readfield, and Jeff Steinert, a science teacher at Edward Little High School in Auburn.

Southworth said the application process required the submission of a video of a classroom lesson from start to finish along with written reflections on the lesson and its subject. The written portion had to focus on a specific segment of the lesson, where it fit in the unit of instruction, and samples of the students’ work.