Math Club, interesting math and competitions

How Central Kitsap High School students make math fun.

Math+Club+group+photo

Benjamin Thompson

Math Club group photo

by Benjamin Thompson, Reporter

Math Club is a club for people passionate and interested in math. The main focus of Math Club is engaging math discussions and math competitions. The club is kept very inclusive so that people of any grade level can join.

“The first thing we’ll do [in a Math Club meeting] is a challenge problem for everyone to try, depending on the difficulty of the problem, we will have groups or we will compete,” said Claire Atkinson, the twelfth grade Math Club president. “Then I go through the short official part of the meeting, where they talk about fundraisers and upcoming competitions… The last part of the meeting we play games and just talk and have a good time.”

There are many different kinds of math competitions, like the before mentioned teachers versus students competition which is more fun, and other competitions are more serious.

There are also some other national [competitions] later on that we might end up doing, which are serious, but also not as silent and individual because there are some group competitions, but the one we did was individual, which is why it was kind of more quiet,” Atkinson said. “So there’s one that we might do where you’re allowed to just write up a proof and submit it but you’re allowed to work with tools, whatever, like materials that you may need for your stuff. So, it depends on which one it is but like they range from very serious, very fun.”

Some competitions are more serious than others, like the American Mathematics Competition is a more serious, timed test.

“The teachers versus student competition is just pretty much like funny joking kind of stuff like, good spirited competition where students can try to beat their teachers and teachers can try to beat their students like at math, and it’s pretty fun,” Atkinson said.

No matter what grade or your skill level there is something for you in the Math Club.

I try to keep it really fun and inclusive, so people in calculus and people in algebra and all the way in between can participate,” Atkinson said.

Math Club does many fun activities, but their main mission is this:

“The big mission of it is to just create a math community where people can like, enjoy, math without judgment,” said Atkinson.