Lake Zurich High has math whizzes

Lake Zurich High School has some mathematicians who can be considered some of the best in the United States.

That’s the case because Lake Zurich High recently earned a ninth-place in the 2011 Collaborative Problem-Solving Contest. It’s a national math derby administered by National Assessment and Testing.

The problem-solving contest presents schools with 15 unique, intricate problems to be solved over a week.

Under the guidance of coaches Steve Ellis, Katie Hanson and Linda Maves, Lake Zurich High’s students worked together using brainstorming, collaboration, research and technology to solve the problems, gaining experience with skills that will be critical in college and their careers.

The 2011 Collaborative Problem-Solving Contest included creative problems accessible to students of all abilities, such as one asking teams to find efficient ways to spell out numbers by moving letter tiles on a game board.

Other problems on the test started out simply, but progressed to some very difficult conclusions. One such problem involved maximizing the profit for a traveling salesman. Maximizing her profit after a single day was fairly easy, but doing so over an entire week proved to be a very difficult problem.

Lake Zurich High also was commended for having the highest score on three of the 15 problems, including one involving shading the cells of a grid according to some rules to reveal a math problem to be solved.

National Assessment and Testing administers high-quality mathematics competitions throughout the year that high schools can participate in through the mail. The contests cover a variety of formats, including individual and team tests, as well as a variety of difficulties, from an easier 100 problems in 30 minutes to this more complicated 15 problems in one week.