Three Springbank Middle School mathletes placed in the top three for the province in their grade level with the Caribous Mathematics Competition last month.
Richard Sheng placed first for the Grade 5/6 math exam while Jenna Crowell placed third. Julie Shore placed third in the Grade 7/8 math exam.
“Sometimes it’s hard and sometimes it’s really easy,” said Sheng, who takes these tests as often as he can.
“Normally there’s a game at the end (of the test), and they’re really fun,” he said.
The competition is a North America wide online contest that is held six times throughout the school year.
At Springbank Middle School, teachers offer it to all students who want to try it.
“It’s a really neat way to build on the math skills,” said teacher Sarah Chung, who organizes the tests for students.
“It’s a challenge to extend beyond the curriculum, so it’s great to see the students do so well.”
In the most recent test, 32 Springbank Middle School students competed at school, and the above three students had the top three scores for Alberta.
“It feels good,” said Jenna Crowell of doing well in the test. She said she likes to do them because it’s different than math they learn in the class and a little bit trickier.
“With Caribou, the questions make you think outside of the box,” said Grade 8 student Julie Shore.
The three rank math as one of their favourite subjects and hope taking this test will keep their skills sharp. Shore said she’s interested in becoming an accountant one day while Crowell and Sheng think they’ll stick to sciences.
“I like finding the answers to things people wouldn’t normally know,” said Crowell.
