LOCAL STUDENTS WILL COMPETE THIS WEEKEND BY MALINDA OSBORNE SVN REPORTER mosborne@svnmail.com
DIXON - Two math students, a boy and his girlfriend, are going to a fair. They are in line to ride the Ferris wheel when it shuts down. The boy says, "It's a sin for those people to keep us waiting like this!"
To which the girl replies, "No, it's a cosine, silly!!!"
If you felt the wind part your hair as that joke went rocketing over your head, you are not alone.
If you giggled, or even just smirked, you might be as smart as a member of the area high school math teams competing Saturday in the Illinois Council of Teachers of Mathematics Region 16 contest at Rock Valley College in Rockford.
Students from Sterling, Newman Central Catholic, Dixon, Oregon and Polo high schools will be out to prove their mathematical mettle in algebra, geometry and precalculus, depending on their grade level.
The competition has two- and eight-person team events, a calculator competition, a relay event and an oral round.
Since the beginning of the semester, Sterling and Dixon High teams have been practicing at Sauk Valley Community College, boning up on their equations and formulas as a group.
"What the students deal with are mostly multi-step problems, instead of practicing a particular skill from a lesson ... Kids have to pull ideas together and brainstorm and come up with strategies that are a little off the beaten path," said Sauk mathematics professor Steve Shaff, who has been involved in math contests since he was in high school. He has helped organize and advise the Sterling team for five years.
This is Dixon's first year participating. The school dropped its math team many years ago, but figured it would give it a try again, said calculus teacher Mark Banghart, Dixon's team coach.
It's an opportunity for students to excel, and it can't hurt his calculus students, who will be taking the AP exam in May, or his lower-level students preparing for the ACT, he said.
"By the time they would get to it, they'll say 'What's this? This is nothing,'" Banghart said.
There are 16 regional sites, each with 30 to 40 teams competing in Saturday's event. Sterling's division has 10 teams.
Last year, Sterling placed third at regionals overall, and its six-person team placed third in geometry in state competition.
Winners advance to the state finals, April 26 at the University of Illinois in Champaign.
Most schools have at least one individual or event team advance to state, but Shaff said he'd like to see the entire 25-person Sterling team advance, which has not happened before.
"We have a tough competition, but the kids have worked hard. We've been doing it long enough now. The seniors are pretty experienced and know what it's about," he said.
Hoping to go out on top this year is Sterling senior Thomas Say, who has consistently placed high at practically every competition he's been in since eighth-grade, but never has made number one at state.
"There's certain techniques you use when you do a lot of math. Generally, you already have a way to figure (a problem) out ... sometimes you think up stuff and you manage to pull out of nowhere and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't," said Say, whom Shaff calls the anchor of the team.
On the other hand, there's students like Dixon senior Clayton Ankney, who's competed only once before, at an American Mathematics Competition at Sauk last week.
Nonetheless, Ankney says he enjoys the competitions, which require attending practice once or twice a week, and a weekly test.
Sterling junior Megan Vandersee said the math team has been a good experience, but not all fun and games.
"I think people would be surprised how competitive it is. They think, 'Oh, you take a bunch of math tests.' For some people, it is their sport," Vandersee said.
Reach Malinda Osborne at (815) 284-2222 or (800) 798-4085, ext. 526.
