A guided tour of Jet Propulsion Laboratory was specially arranged for the 46 Culver City mathletes who participated in this year’s Linwood E. Howe Los Angeles Countywide 4th and 5th Grade Math Olympiads Tournament. Our goal in organizing the tournament and tour is to create an environment where girls and boys who enjoy the challenges of mathematics can be with others who feel the same way, hopefully stimulating them to pursue STEM careers (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics).
The March 14 tour occurred on pie-day (3/14). 3, 1 and 4 are the first three digits of the number Pi; which we can write as 3.14. The mathletes toured the Spacecraft Assembly Facility, Space Flight Operations Facility and the JPL museum includes models of satellites built and operated by JPL. The mathletes learned about the upcoming Juno satellite’s arrival at Jupiter on July 4, 2016. It took five years for Juno to get to Jupiter, and once it settles into orbit, it will collect data from a few thousand miles above the clouds. The tour guides were the scientists and engineers who designed and managed the various satellite projects and it was great to have the mathletes interacting with these scientists.
The JPL tour was a special opportunity for the students who competed in the Ninth Annual Excellence in Mathematics Culver City Math Olympiads Tournament. One-hundred seventy-eight students from 28 elementary schools competed, and 8 CC students performed extremely well. In the team event, the Lin Howe team of Lila Bragard, Jack Fine, Naomi Geiger, Igor Glogonic and Ada Meighan-Thiel, won fourth place from a field of 30 teams. In the individual event, a 2nd place medal was earned by Ren Gibbs (El Marino School). Third place medals were earned by Ada Meighan-Thiel (Lin Howe), Parker Larium (El Marino), Tyler Muir (Farragut), and Ali Watanabe (El Marino).
In celebration of pie-day, our tour host, CC School Board Member Dr. Steven Levin, provided pies for dessert for the mathletes. As the mathletes boarded the bus to return to CC, they thanked Dr. Levin with the Math Cheer, which is part of every tournament event: M-A-M-A-M A T H-M-A-M-A-M A T H-Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division- M-A-M-A-M A T H-Go Mathematicians!
Here is the list of the Culver City Mathletes who attended:
El Marino, Liam Burke, Isabella Davis, Claudia Fan, Sophia Frand, Matz Furumoto, Ren Gibbs, Oliver Hackman, Lucas Hohmann, Shawn Jerry, Parker Lanum, Shaun Masuda, Hope Sato, Aili Watanabe;
El Rincon: Ocean Adams Waters, Marcus George, Yasmin Kabir, Robert Logan, Yohannes Tefera, Ian Warfield;
Farragut: Julian Aragon-Cromwell, Sam Gerstmann, Tyler Muir, Josefine Peinemann, Ciara Treanor, Michelle Zhou;
La Ballona: Nicholas Badour, Asmara Bham, Jamie Deneve, Anthony Mateo, Carlos Perez, Harrison Reilly;
Linwood E. Howe: Sam Alamillo, Mariia Bessolova, Lila Bragard, Jack Fine, Naomi Geiger, Igor Glogonic, Kiki Goldsmith, Cole Longworth, Lily Maxson, Ada Meighan-Thiel, John Mott, Aryan Punj, Zachary Rosenberg.
Culver Currents
Be the first to comment