Sections
Neighborhoods
Features
Follow Us
NHI Newsletter
Legal Notices
Some Favorite Sites
- 5 Snacks After 10
- Abram Katz
- African independent
- At Risk for HD
- Back To Basics
- barista
- Branford Eagle
- Business NH
- Conn Art Scene
- Cornwall-On-Hudson
- Crosscut
- CT Business Litig
- CT Capitol Report
- CT Energy Blog
- CT Enviro Headlines
- CT Green Scene
- CT Law Tribune
- CT Local Politics
- CT Mirror
- CT News Junkie
- CT Watchdog
- CTV
- Design New Haven
- Gotham Gazette
- Hartford Guardian
- Josiah Brown
- Karman Turn
- La Voz Hispana
- Laurel Club
- Len's Lens
- Magrisso Forte
- Media Attache
- Media Nation
- Medical Intelligence
- Middletown Eye
- MinnPost
- My Left Nutmeg
- NBC Connecticut
- NH Advocate
- NH Register
- NH Review of Books
- NH Youth Map
- Northampton Media
- OneWorld
- Only In Bridgeport
- Oral History Project
- Reddit NH
- Road To Greenness
- Saved By Design
- See Click Fix
- Smartpill Design
- Specials In NH
- St. Louis Beacon
- Taste Of NH
- Tom Ficklin
- Valley Independent Sentinel
- Voice of SD
- VT Digger
- WFSB-TV
- WPKN Today
- WTNH
- Yale Daily News
- YourCT
Government/ Community Links
- Advocate Calendar
- Agency on Aging
- Animal Shelter Volunteers
- Arte Inc.
- Arts Council
- Beth El Keser Israel
- Bike New Haven
- Chamber of Commerce
- Children's Museum
- City of New Haven
- CitySeed
- Citywide Youth
- Community Loan Fund
- Community Mediation
- ConnCAN
- Creative Arts Workshop
- CT BAEO
- CT Tech Council
- Dariba Referrals
- Data Haven
- Elm City Cycling
- Elmseed
- Empower NH
- Friends Of Wooster Sq.
- GAVA
- Habitat For Humanity
- Info New Haven
- IRIS
- Jazz Haven
- Jewish Federation
- Job Finder
- Junta
- Labor History
- LEAP
- Legal Aid Network
- Literacy Coalition
- Magrisso Forte
- Mary Wade
- Music Haven
- New Haven 828
- New Haven Chorale
- New Haven Reads
- New Life Corp.
- NH Bulletin
- NH Land Trust
- NH/Leon Sister City
- NHS
- Orchestra NE
- PAR
- Parents Available to Help
- Pat Dillon
- Peace News
- PechaKucha
- Planned Parenthood
- Police
- Promoting Enduring Peace
- Public Allies CT
- Public Library
- Public Schools
- Public Works
- Rainbow Girls
- Register Calendar
- REX
- ROOF
- SAMA
- SCSU Events
- Share Our Voices
- Shubert
- Solar Youth
- Soul-O-Ettes
- Squash Haven
- United Way
- Urban Design League
- Urban Resources Initiative
- Ward 25 Blog
- Ward 26 Blog
- Westville Chabad
- Westville Renaissance
- Westville Synagogue
- Workforce Alliance
- Yale Events
- Yeshiva NH Shul
- Yeshiva Of NH
- Youth Continuum
“Mathlete” Bound for Nationals
by Allan Appel | Mar 18, 2010 10:04 am
(2) Comments | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author
Posted to: Schools, East Rock
Question: How many integers between 15 and 85 are divisible by 20?
If you haven’t figured out the answer yet, then Michael Zuo would have beaten you to the punch.
The answer: four.
Zuo answered questions like that one quickly enough last weekend to win the annual statewide MATHCOUNTS “Countdown” competition, held at the University of Hartford. He beat his opponent in the champion round of the oral questioning 3-0.
Zuo also scored third on a state written test, which qualifies the Worthington Hooker eighth-grader to join three other whizzes from around Connecticut competing in the nationals in Orlando, Florida, May 6-9. .
Click on the play arrow at the top of the story to see a demonstration with Zuo’s teacher Beth Klingher (pictured with Zuo) of how quickly Zuo answered the question and a slightly harder algebra problem.
MATHCOUNTS is a nationwide after-school enrichment program. It aims to make math fun, challenging, and even trendy for middle school kids, who refer to themselves, if they choose, as “mathletes.”
In 2007 Yale undergraduates launched a MATHCOUNTS outreach program in New Haven. Now 28 city schools have the program. More than 300 students participate. Dozens of kids go to local and regional competitions.
Jeffrey Rosen, Zuo’s Yale MATHCOUNTS coach, called him “an incredibly talented problem solver.” He termed Zuo’s speed in computation “extraordinary.”
When Zuo goes to Florida as part of the state team, it’ll be back to the state of his birth. His dad, a biochemist, got him interested in math early.
He came to New Haven and Hooker as a sixth grader, and got involved in MATHCOUNTS. In seventh grade, he and a half-dozen other kids taught themselves algebra in a self-paced program that the school runs. Now, as an eighth-grader, Michael goes over in the mornings to Wilbur Cross High School, where he sits in on honors geometry.
You would think that math is number one in this young man’s interests. But it’s not the case. Asked to rate them, he said, “Number one computer programming, number two fiction and poetry, number three math.”
Although Michael, in a lunchtime interview, would not reveal the subjects of his fiction and poetry, he said numbers did not figure in.
On the other hand, he added, mysteriously, “There’s math in everything.” He intends to pursue math as a career.
In addition to Michael, four other kids from Hooker qualified and participated in the state competition: Elizabeth Bays, Samuel Rosofsky, Simon Doss-Golin, and Kwang Hyun Chung, who placed 30th in the state. Students from Edgewood Magnet also participated at the state level.
Post a Comment
- Commenting has closed for this entry
Comments
posted by: Josiah Brown on March 18, 2010 12:41pm
Congratulations to Michael Zuo and the other New Haven students participating in the MATHCOUNTS program, and good luck to him in the national competition.
His math teacher, Beth Klingher, developed a curriculum unit on “The Power of Graphical Display: How to Use Graphs to Justify a Position, Prove a Point, or Mislead the Viewer.” She prepared this unit as a Fellow in a 2008 Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute seminar that William B. Stewart of the School of Medicine faculty led on “Depicting and Analyzing Data: Enriching Science and Math Curricula through Graphical Displays and Mapping.”
In her unit for math and critical thinking in grades 7-9, Beth Klingher has students “learn to analyze existing graphs to determine whether or not they show a bias. They will learn to question data collection methods and learn how surveys can be designed to promote a specific position or cause. Students will review the calculations behind various ‘averages’ to better understand how different data distributions may alter these averages. They will identify the various graphical techniques often used to prove a point, deceive the viewer or to exaggerate a position.”
http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/guides/2008/6/08.06.06.x.html
posted by: Resident on March 18, 2010 1:25pm
Very nice story. Only problem is that this takes place at the highest-performing k-8 school in New Haven. If Ms. Klingher really wants to make a difference, she would be pulling this off at one of the worst performing schools. In spite of all of the rhetoric over the last few years, Hooker is the best “private” public school in New Haven.
