Congratulations go out to Scotts Valley High School students Andrew Brockmann, Hood Chatham, Luke Thornley and Renate Mols for their fantastic effort in the Collaborative Problem-Solving Contest! This year the team scored fifth place in the nation, tying with Palo Alto High School. Very impressive when you consider that the school we tied offers not one but TWO different courses that focus on problem solving of the type found in math contests like this.
The Collaborative Problem-Solving contest is a national contest in which the students have a week to work as a team, solving 15 unique and unusual math problems. This goes past the usual type of contest, and requires real flexibility in mathematical thinking.
Last year, SVHS students scored 11th place, following previous scores of 15th and 17th place–17th, 15th, 11th, 5th … there’s definitely a mathematical pattern in those numbers!
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~ John Postovit, Scotts Valley High School IB math and calculus teacher
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