11-17-2004 The Tribune Chronicle YSU Mathfest
YSU Hosting Mathfest
by raymond l. smith
Tribune Chronicle
Area students will compete "real world ways to use math" during the second annual Math fest from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday at Youngstown State University.
"We hope they will see some of the kinds of math-related careers that's available to them when they go to college," said Maria Magiassos, algebra and calculus teacher at Champion High school. " We want them to have more of a taste to the opportunities available to them in math-related and other fields." More than 30 Champion and about a dozen Trumbull Career and Technical Center students will be among more than 300 students attending from Mahoning, Trumbull, Columbiana, Portage, Lawrence and Butler counties. Other Trumbull schools represented include Warren, LaBrae and Niles.
"Most of our kids who will be attending the Mathfest are taking upper-level math classes," said Larry Crawford, academic supervisor at TCTC. "Anytime our students have an opportunity to attend this kind of program, it expands their knowledge."
Crawford said it is good for his students to be exposed to college life and talk to students from other schools. "We want them to see students in other schools who also are recognized for having math talent," he said. "Most of the time, they only get to compete with their classmates. They should see what students at other schools are doing."
Mathfest coordinator Angela Spalsbury said the program was started at YSU last year to get high school students thinking about mathematics in ways other than something to help them pass tests. Workshops will include discussions about math theory, while superior students will take a test to gauge their problem-solving capabilities. Students have been invited to submit entries to an essay contest on a work of mathematical fiction and participate in a statistics poster contest.
"Our workshops will emphasize projects the do not see every day in their classrooms," Spalsbury said.
For more information, visit [mathfest site] or call Spalsbury at 330-941-1803.