Schools

Middle Schoolers Do the Math

Mathletes team heads into Tuesday's countywide competition with plenty of momentum and a student vying for perfection.

 

Q: If five hens lay five eggs in five days, how many eggs will 100 hens lay in 100 days?

A: It is unlikely that you are smarter than the 's Mathletes team. (see actual answer below).

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The 8th grade Mathletes head into Tuesday’s Marin County Office of Education Mathletes Competition, the third of four during the school year before the championship in March, as the prohibitive favorite. Their 7th grade counterparts, including Connor Swenberg, Mike Pile, Ben Guggenheim, Sona Dolasia, and Megan Bartschat, also look to contend.

The 8th grade team, featuring Ryan Leary, Christian Lee, Blake Villanueva, Hart Fogel, and 7th grader David Park, won the first two county competitions, besting Marin Country Day School on both occasions.

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Leary, who was on the 8th grade team as both a 6th and 7th grader, is the leader of the pack. Each student gets five problems to solve at each competition, with two minutes to solve each. Leary hasn’t missed a single problem so far.

“He’s amazing,” said middle school algebra teacher Evan Lloyd, the Mathletes advisor along with teacher Robyn Geissler.

The Mathletes gather each Tuesday during lunch for 40 minutes, whizzing through problems presented by Geissler and Lloyd. On a recent Tuesday, the group tackled geometry and algebra, with students rattling off answers and also the methodology they used to land upon them.

“This is a really great group,” Lloyd said.

 

(The answer to the aforementioned egg-related puzzle is 2,000.)


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