{"id":790,"date":"2014-03-10T20:53:56","date_gmt":"2014-03-10T20:53:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/science\/?p=790"},"modified":"2014-03-24T21:50:57","modified_gmt":"2014-03-24T21:50:57","slug":"ufv-hosts-valleys-brightest-math-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/science\/2014\/03\/10\/ufv-hosts-valleys-brightest-math-students\/","title":{"rendered":"UFV hosts valley\u2019s brightest math students"},"content":{"rendered":"

Media contact: Darren McDonald
\ndarren.mcdonald@ufv.ca<\/a><\/p>\n

UFV hosts valley\u2019s brightest math students<\/p>\n

Some of the area\u2019s best and brightest young mathematical minds descended on UFV\u2019s Abbotsford campus for the Fraser Valley Math Challengers Regional Competition recently.<\/p>\n

Grade 8 and 9 contestants battled through three rounds of competition \u2014 two individual rounds and a cooperative team round \u2014 after which the top 10 individuals from each grade faced off two at a time in the final buzzer round. The level of difficulty of the questions varied greatly: speedy calculations were required in the first and fourth rounds, while more resourcefulness in problem-solving was important in the middle two rounds.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s Canadian Math Challengers Society event on Feb. 13 was co-organized by UFV Mathematics and Statistics instructor Ian Affleck.<\/p>\n

\u201cMath Challengers events are actually quite similar to a track-and-field meets, with individual events, team relays, and highly anticipated finals for the top few individuals,\u201d Affleck says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main difference is that the skills developed in training for and competing at Math Challengers are much more likely to directly prepare the participants for their eventual careers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regional competitions are held across B.C. each February, with the top teams from regional tournaments moving on to compete at the annual provincial competition in March.<\/p>\n

Run by volunteers, Math Challengers builds skills, promotes strategic problem-solving, and exposes students to complex problems that require creativity and persistence in order to be solved \u2014 all a critical part of our increasingly technological society, according to the group\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I like best about the Math Challengers contest format is emphasis on collaboration within the school teams.\u00a0 Communication and collaboration are extremely important skills for scientists, engineers, and mathematicians to have, but most math competitions are quiet, sombre examinations where only individual achievement is recognized.\u00a0 It’s exciting to see the teams of four or five young minds brainstorming together in the cooperative round, and to hear the cheers of encouragement from schoolmates for those competing in the final face-off round,\u201d adds Affleck.<\/p>\n

Questions from this year\u2019s regional completion included: What is the smallest positive integer that is a solution of 32x \u2212 16 > 1600?; How many square units are in the area of the trapezoid with vertices at (0, 0), (8, 0), (5, 3), and (1, 3)?; and the first two terms of the Fibonacci sequence are 1 and 1. After that, each term is the sum of the previous two. So the Fibonacci sequence goes 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, and so on. How many of the first 100 terms of the Fibonacci sequence are multiples of 4?<\/p>\n

2014 Fraser Valley Regional Competition Results<\/b><\/p>\n

Top 10 Grade 8 individuals:<\/p>\n

1. St. John Brebeuf Secondary: Young Jae Jung<\/p>\n

2. Fleetwood Park Secondary: Andrew Luo<\/p>\n

3. Pacific Academy\u00ad: Serena Tsao<\/p>\n

4. Fleetwood Park Secondary: Jason Mao<\/p>\n

5. Pacific Academy: Courtenay Chu Winner: (Winner: Grade 8 face-off round)<\/p>\n

6. Alex Hope Elementary: Yilian Zhao<\/p>\n

7. Mission Secondary: Imat Grewal<\/p>\n

8. Credo Christian High School: Shawn Deddens<\/p>\n

9. Clayburn Middle: Shua Cho<\/p>\n

10. Fleetwood Park Secondary: Terry Zheng<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Top 10 Grade 9 individuals:<\/p>\n

1. R.E. Mountain Secondary: Jerry Zhu<\/p>\n

2. Fleetwood Park Secondary: Alex Liu<\/p>\n

3. Fleetwood Park Secondary: Justin Zheng (Winner: Grade 9 face-off round)<\/p>\n

4. R.E. Mountain Secondary: Justin Zhao<\/p>\n

5. Johnston Heights Secondary: Daniel Venn<\/p>\n

6. Meadow Ridge Secondary: Ryan Zhou<\/p>\n

7. Johnston Heights Secondary: Victoria Ni<\/p>\n

8. R.E. Mountain Secondary: Elly Choi<\/p>\n

9. Johnston Heights Secondary: Sean Park<\/p>\n

10. Johnston Heights Secondary: Henry Cao<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Top six Grade 8 schools (invited to provincials):<\/p>\n

1. Fleetwood Park Secondary<\/p>\n

2. Pacific Academy<\/p>\n

3. Alex Hope Elementary<\/p>\n

4. St. John Brebeuf Secondary<\/p>\n

5. Credo Christian High School<\/p>\n

6. Langley Meadows Elementary<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Top six Grade 9 schools (invited to provincials):<\/p>\n

1. R.E. Mountain Secondary<\/p>\n

2. Johnston Heights Secondary<\/p>\n

3. Meadow Ridge Secondary<\/p>\n

4. Fleetwood Park Secondary<\/p>\n

5. Credo Christian High School<\/p>\n

6. St. John Brebeuf Secondary<\/p>\n

For more information, visit http:\/\/apeg.bc.ca\/mathchallengers\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Media contact: Darren McDonald darren.mcdonald@ufv.ca UFV hosts valley\u2019s brightest math students Some of the area\u2019s best and brightest young mathematical minds descended on UFV\u2019s Abbotsford campus for the Fraser Valley Math Challengers Regional Competition recently. Grade 8 and 9 contestants battled through three rounds of competition \u2014 two individual rounds and a cooperative team round … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events","category-mathstats"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=790"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":793,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790\/revisions\/793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}