FORKS — Forks Mathletes, a team of talented math students, took three second-place finishes in the Washington State Mathematics Council’s High School Mathematics Contest at Eisenhower High School in Yakima.
The triple-silver finish earlier this month represented the best overall performance for the team in its four-year history, Allen Lewis, Forks High School math teacher and math team coach, said last week.
Stevi Martinez-Jewett and Rebekah Johansen placed second among 34 Division 2 teams on the team problem category, which students have one hour to solve, Lewis said.
In the ad hoc topical problem category, Nick Gilmore took second, and the team of Rachel Harner, Alissa Shaw and Sehar Bokhari earned second in the team project category.
The team project is a challenge in which students use a website to view video clips and pictures, then find ways to use them as math-related teaching tools, Lewis said.
Students used three pictures from online, made up three teaching tools of their own and used a clip from another school.
Lewis pointed out that the Spartans beat out such large schools as Foss High School and Archbishop Murphy from the Tacoma/Seattle area, as well as many other schools, to earn an overall team second place, only 4.5 points behind Curtis High School in the Tacoma area.
They were also the first all-girls team to place at state in team project, Lewis said.
“All the team members did a great job by having two teams finish second, while more than 20 schools did not even get one finish,” he said.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.
