Week of March 18, 2013
University High School of Irvine will again defend its title against 36 other Southern California high schools during the 14th annual Math Day at The Beach at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) on Saturday, March 23. The event takes place from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Ballroom of the campus’ University Student Union.
Presented by CSULB’s Department of Mathematics and Statistics, the event pits teams in a math problem-solving festival. Schools will field groups of six students that compete in team as well as individual events for prizes and trophies.
More than 200 students as well as independent individuals are participating. Schools are divided into Divisions A and B, vying for the top prize in each division. The centerpiece of the event is a 70-minute exam designed by CSULB Mathematics Department faculty that includes both multiple choice and free response questions in high school-level mathematics.
The contest emphasizes intuitive thinking rather than computational skill, without the use of calculators. Questions are selected from algebra, geometry, trigonometry, number theory, combinatorics, and probability and statistics.
In addition to the exam, there is a team round in which all members work on a set of problems in a given amount of time and a final face-off round in which top-scoring individuals represent their team in an oral format.
There will be 25 high schools from Los Angeles County competing, including Arcadia High; Mark Keppel High, Alhambra; Burbank High; Valley Christian High, Cerritos; Whitney High, Cerritos; Diamond Bar High; Arroyo High, El Monte; Glendora High; La Cañada High; Cabrillo High, Long Beach; Jordan High, Long Beach; Millikan High, Long Beach; Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet High, Los Angeles; Loyola High, Los Angeles; North Hollywood High; Palos Verdes Peninsula High; El Rancho High, Pico Rivera; Chadwick School, Rancho Palos Verdes; John A. Rowland High, Rowlands Heights; San Marino High; Port of Los Angeles High, San Pedro; South Pasadena High; Harvard-Westlake School, Studio City; South High, Torrance; Walnut High.
From Orange County, there will be 10 schools represented, including University High in Irvine, which has won the competition every year since 2008; Oxford Academy, Cypress; Bolsa Grande High, Garden Grove; Fountain Valley High; Troy High, Fullerton; Beckman High, Irvine; Los Alamitos High; Sunny Hills High, Fullerton; Woodbridge High, Irvine; Yorba Linda High.
Also taking part will be Royal High School from Ventura County’s Simi Valley community and Dos Pueblos High from Santa Barbara County’s Goleta area.
Individual students from Sage Hill School, Irvine; M.L. King High and J.W. North High, Riverside; Mira Costa High, Manhattan Beach; Damien High, La Verne; and Gahr High, Cerritos, also will participate.
The guest speaker for this year’s event will be Shandy Hauk, a senior research associate at WestEd, a nonprofit public research and development agency that works with education and other communities to promote excellence, achieve equity, and improve learning for children, youth and adults.
Sponsors include the Jerry Cassaday Family; LBS Financial Credit Union; Art of Problem Solving; and CSULB’s Department of Mathematics and Statistics and Associated Students Inc.
For more information, contact CSULB Mathematics and Statistics Professor Kent Merryfield at 562/985-5787, kent.merryfield@csulb.edu, or visit the Math Day @ The Beach web page.
