Aviano students make math count

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Sarah Gregory
  • 31st Fighter Wing Public Affairs
Aviano Air Base, Italy --  A team of four Aviano Middle School "mathletes" took first place at the Department of Defense Dependents Schools - Europe's 2007 Mathcounts competition held in Wiesbaden, Germany, March 21.  

Mathcounts is a national coaching and competition program designed to stimulate sixth through eighth grade students' interest and achievements in math. 

James Yoder, Sam Hillestad, Michelle Navarro and Emily Prior and their coach, AMS math teacher Alan Scharff, competed against 10 other teams from around Europe for the win. 

To prepare for the competition, the coach worked with potential team members three days a week from the beginning of the school year. After the team was established, practices were set at 10 hours a week.
 
"The students prepare by completing extra homework," said Mr. Scharff. "We train Monday through Thursday for two and a half hours each day. We work on algebra, geometry, probabilities and statistics and on all the different levels of mathematics up to trigonomic functions. 

"It's very demanding, and they have a lot of work," he said. 

The Aviano team started with more than 20 students but Mr. Scharff said that many are too busy to attend practices. 

"There are other very talented students in the school but because they are involved with so many activities, they can't make it [to practices] and that's what hurts them," he said. "When they get into the classroom and see what we have to do, they give up." 

In addition to math, Mathcounts students have to excel in English and be skilled at solving story problems and understanding puzzles. Contestants don't know what type of problems they'll be asked to solve during the competition, but they have to be prepared for anything. 

"It's like a puzzle or game, and you have to figure out all the rules," said Michelle. "You just don't know which game you have until you read the question." 

Fellow team member Sam agrees that knowing how to solve different types of problems and being prepared is important for success. 

"There's a huge variety of questions - but it's all really hard," said eighth-grader Sam. "We do a lot of geometry and algebra problems at a 10th or 11th grade level. 

Sam, who placed second in the individual category, and Mr. Scharff will be joining the DoDDS national team to compete at the national finals held in Fort Worth, Texas, in May. 

The national team, comprised of the top four students DoDDS-wide, includes two students from Germany, one from Japan and one from Aviano. 

"The national team is made up of the best, highest-scoring four students in all of DoDDS," said Mr. Scharff. "The nationals consist of 228 of the best students in the world." 

Over the next six weeks, Michelle and Sam will work together to help train Sam for the national competition. 

"Sam works best with competition and [Michelle] is scoring very well against him and that's what he needs," said the coach. "All the team members have high goals and being on the team can help them achieve them. It's about managing your time and being able to do everything. 

"These are tomorrow's leaders."