Friday, February 13, 2009

High School Seniors and Juniors: Ready for a Math Challenge? Register to Compete for $80,000 in Scholarship Prizes

YORK COUNTY —
Less than a month remains to register teams for the fourth-annual Moody’s Mega Math Challenge, an Internet-based applied math competition for high school students. Teams must register online by Monday, March 2 at 5 p.m. to be eligible to win scholarship prizes totaling $80,000. Prizes will be awarded to the top teams by The Moody’s Foundation in early May.
Teacher-coaches must register their teams online at http://m3challenge.siam.org/register/ and each high school may enter up to two teams of three to five 11th or 12th grade students per team. There are no participation or entry fees.
Students choose which day they wish to work during Challenge weekend, March 7 or 8, and have 14 hours to solve an open-ended, realistic, applied math-modeling problem focused on real-world issues. Teams are able to download the problem at 7 a.m. on their selected Challenge day and must upload their paper by 9 p.m. that same evening. They will have no knowledge of the problem until they download it from the M3 Challenge web site. It is recommended that all teams prepare in advance using any resources available. There are several sample problems available for practice on the Challenge website at http://m3challenge.siam.org/.
This year, more students than ever before are eligible to participate as the Challenge has expanded to include all high school juniors and seniors in New England and Mid-Atlantic states, from Maine through Washington, D.C. Find out if your school is eligible at http://m3challenge.siam.org/rules/eligibility.php.
Teacher-coaches are responsible for selecting and registering their team(s), communicating the contest rules and guidelines to their team(s), receiving all contest communications including and especially the team ID # and password, and preparing their team for the Challenge (optional, but recommended). Teacher-coaches are not required to be physically with or near their team on Challenge day and are prohibited from helping their team during the Challenge itself.
Moody’s Mega Math Challenge spotlights applied mathematics as a powerful problem-solving tool, as a viable and exciting profession, and as a vital contributor to advances in an increasingly technical society. The Challenge is funded by The Moody’s Foundation and organized by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM).
More information on Moody’s Mega Math Challenge 2009 can be found at http://m3challenge.siam.org/.