Q: My daughter, a freshman, wants to join her high school robotics club. She struggles with math, so I don't know if she'll find it too hard. What are the benefits of a club like that?

A: Listing all the benefits would exceed this column's word limit! Encourage her to go for it. Her math skills will improve just by being part of the team.

It's likely that your daughter's high school participates in the FIRST Robotics Competition, an international program that organizers call "sport for the mind" and "the hardest fun you'll ever have." Each year, student teams raise funds, design a "brand," hone teamwork skills and -- following precise rules and using limited time and resources -- build and program robots to perform prescribed tasks in a series of competitions.

FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) was founded in 1989 by prolific inventor Dean Kamen.

"The nation's employers and policymakers were worried about the decline in the number of students taking rigorous science, technology, engineering and math courses," notes Laura London, who worked on the launch of FIRST's competition. "Dean Kamen decided to act. He created a fun, challenging and rewarding program that really draws students in. It's a spectacular success."

FIRST has also created programs for middle and elementary schools.

Most FIRST teams have about 25 students who work collaboratively to solve a design challenge that changes each year. Teams compete regionally, nationally and internationally.

"The competitions are a rollicking good time," says London. "Teams who have worked day and night on their robots are as psyched for the 'game.' Parents, teachers and coaches cheer themselves hoarse on the sidelines."

While building a winning robot is the goal, collaboration and teamwork are key parts of the experience.

"You compete like crazy, but help each other out," says physics teacher Patrick Freivald, the popular leader of Naples, New York, high school squad the Grapes of Wrath. "Once, a team we were about to play destroyed a transmission. They put out a request on the loudspeaker for a replacement. Within the next several minutes, we and at least four other teams showed up with spare transmissions."

Mentors with a range of skills advise the team, but don't take over the project, says Freivald.

"There's a lot of work and it's not all technical," he explains. "Teams not only build robots. They have to raise funds, write proposals, do publicity to engage the community and promote the events, and plan travel to the competitions. Your daughter will find plenty of opportunities to shine."

Are the educational benefits worth the tremendous effort? "Absolutely," insists Freivald. "Dollar for dollar, minute for minute, FIRST is a terrific educational experience.

"Not only do team members learn technical skills such as welding, CAD (computer-aided design) and assembly, they also stretch their minds to tackle a tough problem with not enough time, people or resources, and they do it magnificently. Along the way, they learn marketing, public relations, fundraising and entrepreneurship."

(The 2015-16 competition is now underway. For more information, go to usfirst.org.)

(Do you have a question about your child's education? Email it to Leanna@aplusadvice.com. Leanna Landsmann is an education writer who began her career as a classroom teacher. She has served on education commissions, visited classrooms in 49 states to observe best practices, and founded Principal for a Day in New York City.)

Q: At Parent Night, our principal told parents to encourage our kids' curiosity and to welcome their questions. My 6-year-old son asks questions incessantly (and often annoyingly), but my 11-year-old couldn't be less curious. She's like, "whatever." Why the emphasis on curiosity?

A: Sorry to hear about your daughter. A sense of curiosity is not only a key to deeper learning; it also adds excitement and wonder to life. It's not too late to cure her of "whatever."

"Curiosity has a powerful emotional component. It works on our pleasure center," says Hank Pellissier, director of the Brighter Brains Institute. Yet, he notes, children start to lose curiosity between the ages of 5 and 12 because of the lack of listening support from adults. Common curiosity-killing responses are "look it up" or "you don't need to know."

Curious students often do well in school. "I'd argue that the best learners -- a term not necessarily synonymous with 'best students' -- have curiosity in abundance," writes Burlington, Vermont, educator Erik Shonstrom.

How does curiosity help? It makes your mind active instead of passive, and makes you open to and observant of new ideas, says Donald Latumahina of lifehack.org. "When you are curious about something, your mind expects and anticipates new ideas related to it. Without curiosity, you miss them, because your mind is not prepared to recognize them."

There are always new things to attract a curious person's attention, says Latumahina, and "always new 'toys' to play with.

"Curious people have an adventurous life," he added.

Latumahina suggests six easy strategies to help develop curiosity.

-- Keep an open mind. Be open to learning, unlearning and relearning.

-- Don't accept things at face value. Dig deep beneath the surface.

-- Don't label something as "boring." When you do, "you close a door of possibilities," says Latumahina. Curious people always see a subject "as a door to an exciting new world. Even if they don't yet have time to explore it, they will leave the door open to be visited another time."

-- See learning as fun, not a burden.

-- Read widely. Doing so "will introduce you to the possibilities and excitement of other worlds, which may spark your interest to explore them further," Latumahina suggests.

-- Ask questions. "What, why, when, who, where and how are the best friends of curious people," says Latumahina.

Sometimes kids need to get comfortable with the give-and-take of questions. Biophysicist Gregory Stock wrote "The Kids' Book of Questions" (Workman, 2015) to encourage thought-provoking, curiosity-inducing conversation within families.

Inquisitiveness is highly predictive of intelligence, says Pellissier. One 2002 study he cites followed highly curious 3-year-olds and found that at age 11, they had higher academic grades, superior reading ability, and IQ scores 12 points higher than their less-inquisitive peers.

Take it from Albert Einstein. He believed that "the important thing is not to stop questioning. Never lose a holy curiosity."

(Do you have a question about your child's education? Email it to Leanna@aplusadvice.com. Leanna Landsmann is an education writer who began her career as a classroom teacher. She has served on education commissions, visited classrooms in 49 states to observe best practices, and founded Principal for a Day in New York City.)

Q: The counselor at our daughter's middle-school orientation surprised us by talking about college. She assumed kids would attend, even though plenty of college grads can't get work. Isn't middle school tough enough without the pressure of having teens think about college?

A: What's tough is getting to your senior year, ready to apply to college, and finding that you're unprepared -- that your grades won't get you the financial support you might have enjoyed, or that you're simply not ready for college work.

Granted, during the Great Recession some newly minted grads couldn't find work. That caused some to question the value of a college education. But that was a blip.

"There's a well-established 'wage premium' associated with college graduation," says Robert Pondiscio, a senior fellow at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. "Over the long haul, there's no doubt about the value of a four-year degree."

The last several years of school-improvement efforts -- from No Child Left Behind to the Common Core State Standards -- have been about getting our nation's students "college- and career-ready," says Pondiscio.

"Most jobs today require high-level skills, and that almost always means education beyond high school," says Pondiscio. "Upward mobility correlates strongly with some manner of post-K-12 education, whether it's college, career and technical education (CTE) or some other credential. Raising standards is an attempt to position more kids -- not just those who go to college -- to take advantage of these increasingly essential opportunities."

Pondiscio says it's particularly important to help poor children see college as a goal. "For most low-income kids -- assuming they are adequately prepared in K-12 -- earning a college degree is an on-ramp to upward mobility."

Middle school isn't too early to chart a path to college, says Matt Frahm, the superintendent of the Naples (New York) Central School District.

"Educators in our district help students make the connection between doing well in school and being successful in life," he explains. "Preparing for a 40-plus-year career that is financially and psychologically rewarding is part of that success."

Some educators set college expectations in kindergarten. Jose Ruben Olivares, the principal of Think College Now (TCN), a public elementary school in Oakland, California, says it's never too early to open kids' eyes to the potential of college. TCN's walls have banners from nearly every college in the nation -- colorful daily reminders that encourage students to aspire to college. The curriculum emphasizes "college knowledge" -- setting goals, thinking about careers and developing study skills to get the grades required for acceptance.

Educators can help students set their sights on college, but parents play the most important role in getting a child beyond K-12.

A recent study by Keith Robinson, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin, and Angel L. Harris, a professor of sociology at Duke University, looked at what kinds of "parental involvement" were most effective in boosting students' achievement. They found that the factor that made the most difference -- across all groups' studies -- was whether parents expected a child to attend college.

"If parents assume their children will pursue post-secondary education -- and talk about it with excitement and without pressure throughout their K-12 years -- then kids will begin to see college as part of their life's goals," says Frahm, the Naples superintendent.

(Do you have a question about your child's education? Email it to Leanna@aplusadvice.com. Leanna Landsmann is an education writer who began her career as a classroom teacher. She has served on education commissions, visited classrooms in 49 states to observe best practices, and founded Principal for a Day in New York City.)