Submitted by Lopez School Principal Lisa Shelby

Lopez Island elementary and middle school students competed in Math Olympiad on Saturday, May 3. Math Olympiad is teams of three to four students gathered at sites across the state to compete in an hour-long long problem session, as well as five 20-minute short problem sessions covering number sense, probability and statistics, measurement geometric sense and algebraic sense. This competition is open to fifth to eighth grades, unless you have strong 4th graders with the ability to compete.

Lopez sent three teams, two elementary and one middle school to Whatcom County to compete. Our 2 elementary teams comprised of five fourthh graders, and one fifht grader. We had one middle school team of four eighth graders.

The results:
Team 5A (Matalika, Kai, Sara): (all three are fourth graders)​

– Top score, and an “Excellent” ribbon in Session 1 (Problem Solving)

–  Second of five overall (fifth grade teams)

– “Very Good” in Probability and Statistics

– The only fifth grade team to get a ribbon in Whatcom

Team 5B (Tristan, Aaron, Liz) : (two fourth graders, one 5th grader)​

– Third overall out of 5​

(5th grade teams)

– Second highest Session 1 score

– Third highest Session 2 score

Team 8A (Gavin, Naomi, Anah Kate, and Ashi)

– 75 percent and an “Excellent” Ribbon in Session 1 (Problem Solving)

– An “Excellent” in Algebraic and Geometric Sense, and a “Very Good” in Measurement

– Second in the eigtth grade teams

Congratulations to these students. Thank you also to our volunteer coach, Emma Ewert. Her love of math and Math Olympiad competition was palpable and we are lucky to have her sharing this energy with our Lopez students. We appreciate all of the hard work our math teachers and Emma have put in to strengthen our math program overall, and give the love of learning math to our Lopez students.