Math is fun. Math is cool. And math is a sport.
Just ask any of the 150 middle schoolers — or Mathletes, as they like to be called — taking part in the Southern Arizona MathCounts competition today.
"It's more like a sport because people who do this do it because they enjoy doing it — it's not about grades," Xiao Wang, 13, said of MathCounts.
Students from 23 Tucson-area middle schools will compete in the four-round, timed, team and individual math event, said Southern Arizona co-coordinator Martha Davis.
Wang attended her first MathCounts contest last year, representing Alice Vail Middle School. She placed eighth overall.
Today, Wang will lead her school team in the Southern Arizona MathCounts competition, held at Empire High School in Vail.
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"Everybody's nervous," she said. "But we all love math, and that's what MathCounts is really all about."
Participating middle schools across Arizona and the country have been preparing students for the competition since September, the month when the MathCounts organization sends out a yearly curriculum book free to middle schools, Davis said.
Many schools integrate the MathCounts material into their standard math classes, she said, while others host after-school programs to prepare students.
At Alice Vail Middle School, MathCounts can be taken as an elective class.
"We prepare every day in class," said Debra Pettit, Alice Vail's MathCounts coach. "It's not just me telling the kids, 'These are the solutions'; it's the kids stepping up and teaching each other how to solve these problems — and there's nothing cooler for me as a teacher than seeing kids really enjoy and debating about math and all the different ways to approach and solve a problem."
Today's local winners will advance to a March 1 statewide MathCounts contest at Cienega High School, also in Vail.
The top four students and one coach from Arizona then will be invited to compete at the national MathCounts event in Denver, held May 8-10.
Sunday update
See Sunday's Arizona Daily Star for further coverage of the MathCounts competition.
