Students have fun with math

By Denise Dick

denise_dick@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

About 300 high school students from Northeast Ohio and western Pennsylvania tested their mathematical skills at Youngstown State University’s MathFest.

The annual event drew students from about 30 high schools who competed for prizes by solving math problems.

In the Kilcawley Center’s Chestnut Room, Jen Eich, a senior at Poland Seminary High School, was among most of the MathFest participants who competed in teams with students from other schools in the Mixed Team Competition. The teams had to collaborate to solve a series of problems and show their work.

“I really like math,” Eich said. “It’s my favorite subject.”

She plans to major in math in college, possibly at Bowling Green State University.

“I like it so far – I like meeting new people,” she said.

While the Mixed Team Competition proceeded on the first floor, individual students participated in the Challenge of Champions on the second floor in Kilcawley Center’s Ohio Room. Those students were picked by teachers to compete.

Each student had to solve 10 problems.

“They’re more difficult questions,” said Julie Seitz, director of dual enrollment and student support services of YSU’s math and statistics.

“They require more critical thinking and thinking out of the box.”

After the first contest, students each attended two workshops. Those sessions are intended to show math’s fun side, Seitz said.

For one problem, students had to answer: “What fraction of the set of positive integers 1, 2, 3, ..., 2016 are perfect cubes?”

MathFest exposes high school students to problems they don’t typically see in high school math, Seitz said.

In one particularly popular workshop, “Mathematics and Origami,” students craft a dodecahedron, a three-dimensional, 12-sided solid in geometry, using paper.

Chaney senior Mark Herron chose “Discover the STEM Behind Football” and “The Mathematics of Brain Activity” for his workshops. Thursday was the first time Mark attended MathFest.

“We were picked to do it,” he said of his selection for participation in MathFest.