Rockville students advance to finals in national math competition
Students from Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville have advanced to the finals in a national mathematics competition.
The students – Matt Kolodner, Clarissa Xia, Jack Yang, Laura Yao and Lauren Zhou – are finalists in the MathWorks Math Modeling Challenge, and will travel to New York City on April 29 to compete against five other finalist teams at the offices of Jane Street, a quantitative trading firm.
The students had 14 hours in February to develop a model to predict the spread of nicotine use due to vaping over the next 10 years and then construct a second model to simulate the likelihood certain individuals will use a substance, considering social influence and personal characteristic traits.
About 875 teams from across the country submitted papers detailing their recommended solutions.
Potomac sophomore receives grant to fight childhood hunger
Kade Friedlander, a 10th-grade student at Bullis School in Potomac was recently awarded a Sodexo Stop Hunger Foundation Youth Grant that will support a service project addressing childhood hunger.
The high school sophomore received a $4,000 grant that will help facilitate a neighborhood food drive, a Diener School food drive and packing backpacks with snacks for the National Center for Children and Families.
About 40 million Americans – one in six children – are food insecure, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Montgomery County, 77,780 people are estimated to be food insecure, about 33,000 of whom are children.
“This problem is one that can be solved,” Friedlander said in a statement. “All of us – young and old – are a part of the solution.”
Student design contest winners announced
The winners of a Montgomery school system contest that challenged students to design their ideal classrooms and schools were announced during the school board’s Tuesday meeting.
The school system launched the United We Learn contest in 2017 with the goal of providing students with a creative, structured opportunity to explore topical issues and learn about the values of respect, diversity and civility. This year’s theme, Schools of the Future, challenged students of all grade levels, to design their dream classroom and think critically about how their physical environment affects their ability to learn.
Winners were:
Elementary school, first place – Shahwaar Rajput, Sherlyn Zhu, Aislin Deng, Emay Liu and Emma Toothaker, of Travilah Elementary.
Middle school, first place – Claire Stanton, Christina Pan and Athena Stayeas, of silver Creek Middle School.
High school, first place – Karen Boby, Divya Bhat and Mihika Panicker, of Northwest High School.
