Wednesday, March 14, 2001
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Wednesday, March 14, 2001 |
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Fayette math team to compete in state contest Saturday A Fayette County math team will compete at the state level this weekend. Fayette and Rising Starr middle schools finished first and fourth place, respectively, at the regional Math Counts competition last month at Georgia Tech, and with the regional win Fayette Middle advances to state competition Saturday, March 17. Math Counts is a national organization whose purpose is to create more interest in math by making the subject fun and providing an environment in which to compete. The organization is open to middle and junior high school students. Students at both schools have the opportunity to become involved in Math Counts by joining the Math Club. Anyone who is interested in math can join the clubs. Each school selects a four-person team by testing each student in the club. The four students with the highest scores make up that school's Math Counts team, but anyone who wants to participate as an individual competitor can do so. Fayette Middle had several students who placed individually: Matt Park, third place; Dee Humphrey, fourth place; Sara McGlothlin, fifth place, and Carl Belshause, eighth place. Placing at the competition is no easy task. The questions are extremely difficult and time limits are placed on formulating the answers. There are three rounds to the competition: the individual round where problems are solved without using a calculator, target round which allows students to use a calculator and team round where a calculator is used and competitors tap the knowledge of their teammates to find answers. On the individual round, competitors have 40 minutes to answer 30 problems, the target round gets six minutes for every two problems (four pair total) and the team round allows for 20 minutes for 10 problems. Jane Hannon, eighth grade math teacher and Math Counts coach at Fayette Middle, said sometimes the problems the students are asked to solve stump her. "Some of these problems I can't solve. I have to get help from the students," Hannon said. "I have learned a lot from being involved in Math Counts. It has made me a better teacher." Fayette Middle is the only public school from Coweta, Henry and Fayette counties to make it to the state competition Saturday. "I was not surprised that we took first place. We had been doing well during practice and I knew that we would succeed at the competition," Hannon said. Hannon's students have been practicing once a day after school for one hour since September in order to prepare for the regional contest. Now that they have won a place in the state competition, Hannon says she hopes that her students will make it to the national level this year. At the state level, Math Counts takes the four highest scoring individuals and forms a team for the state regardless of the schools the students represent. Last year no students from Fayette were on the team that went to the nationals. "I want to see our students make the team, but I am just hoping that we can get as close to the top five as we can," Hannon added. Although Rising Starr Middle did well in the regional competition with its fourth place finish, only the first place winners are allowed to advance to the state round. However, team coaches Sue Ellen Buchanan, Amy McAfee and Carol Taylor said that they are pleased with the fourth place finish considering the team had only been practicing for the competition since January. "We are extremely proud of our team. They spent hours doing math and have worked very hard for us," said Buchanan. "One of the reasons we're so proud is that we have only been practicing since January where other schools started in September. We had less time to prepare but we still managed to earn a high placement." Buchanan, who teaches eighth grade math, and McAfee, a student teacher, said they incorporated some Math Counts problems into the regular classroom curriculum so that the students on the team were able to get in some extra practice. "We hope that our fourth place victory will help spark an interest among other students about joining the math club and participating in Math Counts next year," said Buchanan.
The team members from the two schools are listed below.
Fayette Middle School Team: Carl Belshause, Matt (Sung Jun) Park, Dee Humphrey and Sara McGlothlin. Participants competing individually were Nia Chau, Taylor Barnes, Russell McCord, Charlie Murphy, Carl Belshause, Matt (Sung Jun) Park, Dee Humphrey and Sara McGlothlin. Alternates were Jimmy McCullaugh and Yvonne Wong.
Rising Starr Middle School Team: Josh Nichols, Bradley Morris, Kelly Darr and Jordan Grace. Participants competing individually were Bryan Martin and Daniel Shankle.
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