Schools
Math Field Day Celebrates Smarts
Middle school "mathletes" compete in valley-wide skills challenges for prizes and bragging rights.
students were among the winners today at the 17th annual Rotary Math Field Day, held in Indio.
Some 300 middle school students from the Coachella Valley put their math skills on display, using engineering and strategic thinking to create interesting and complex objects at the l.
Competitions ranged from paper airplane building and three-dimensional tic-tac-toe to building a small bridge out of dried spaghetti and marshmallows.
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The students prepare all year for this event, meeting after school and on saturdays to prepare for Math Field Day.
Riverside County Supervisor helped start the event in 1994 when he was then President of the Indio Rotary. He told Patch that the event is still
close to his heart.
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“The first one went over like this one did; Just terrific,” Benoit said.
“When you get in this room at the end of the event and you hear the excitement and the kids screaming and hollering – about math of all things – the energy is just incredible.
"It’s fun and rewarding, and I’m really honored to be part of it.”
The team from Palm Desert Charter Middle School won the Perpetual Trophy for best eighth-grade performance, and also took second place among the seventh graders.
John Glenn Middle School was honored for the best of the seventh-grade teams and Mecca Middle School took the top award for its sixth-grade team.
