Wednesday, May 20, 2009
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Mikayla Roberts, LaBrae Middle School 5th grader, competes in Equation event Tuesday.
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L-R competing in Equations tournament Tuesday in Cortland are Joetta Reed, 5th grader from Reed Middle school in Hubbard, Kevin Dunn, 4th grader Newton Falls Middle School and Ben Hoover, 4th grader from LaBrae Intermediate School.
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Bruce Pyles, Lordstown 5th grader, competes in Equations event Tuesday.
By Sean Barron
For many students, being in the competition added up to good teamwork and enjoyment.
CORTLAND — A.J. Whipkey may not fancy himself as another Archimedes, one of history’s greatest mathematicians, but for him, the sum of various math challenges equals a lot of enjoyment.
“I find it fun instead of work,” said A.J., a sixth-grader at Bloomfield Middle School in the Bloomfield-Mesopotamia School District. “Just all math seems fun to me.”
A.J.’s excitement probably increased exponentially when he learned he had been selected to take part in Tuesday’s Equations competition at the Garden Brook Banquet Center, 4820 state Route 5 N.E.
An estimated 328 youngsters in grades four through eight representing 17 Trumbull County school districts participated in the three-hour tournament. Hosting the 15th annual competition was the Trumbull County Educational Service Center.
“I reacted like a kid who gets a new toy for Christmas,” A.J. said of the Equations game.
Equations is a comprehensive math game that combines problem-solving skills with players’ ability to use strategies, bluffing and intrigue to solve a variety of challenges. The game incorporates addition, multiplication, subtraction, division, exponentiation, square roots and fractions.
For the competition, youngsters named and broke into teams of three to five students. Some team titles were perhaps as creative as students’ problem-solving abilities — with names such as A Slice of Pi, The Laugh-Matics, 2 Smart 4 U, Mathemagicians, 3.14159 (the approximate value of pi) and the Equationators.
A.J. was a member of the Equationators, a name that was inspired largely by the movie “The Terminator,” he explained.
A love of math also was evident on the face of Joetta Reed, a fifth-grader at Reed Middle School in Hubbard, as well as her assessment of her teacher.
“My math teacher is awesome,” Joetta said, while working alongside Ben Hoover, a LaBrae Intermediate School fourth-grade student, and Kevin Dunn, a fourth-grader at Newton Falls Middle School.
During the game, students were required to use a maximum of five colored cubes containing numerals and symbols to come up with solutions to various math equations. They also were able to use an unlimited number of cubes to figure out equivalent solutions.
The youngsters took part in three 30-minute rounds and were awarded up to a total of 18 points (six per round), based on their ability to come up with viable solutions. Ribbons and plaques were given to top team and individual scores for each grade.
Several parents volunteered to serve as judges and add up scores.
The event’s main purpose was to enhance students’ appreciation for math in a competitive yet fun way, noted Michele Krisher, a supervisor with the educational service center. Students get to come up with answers to math problems while setting goals, she explained.
“They can take mathematical concepts and use them in creative ways,” Krisher said. “It’s a nice way for the kids to use what they learn in the classroom.”