Math whizzes receive high marks at regionals

Three sixth-grade math teams from Cloquet Middle School attended the regional Math Masters competition in Duluth earlier this month. "It was a fun day," said math team coach and middle school teacher Christine Metzer, who described the March 7 competition and shared the results with the Pine Knot.

The first round of competition included a 75-question "order of operations" test with a timed 5 minutes to complete it. Brisa Nelis placed fifth, Mareike Rosebrock placed eighth and Camden Ragsdale placed ninth in the fact drill.

In the individual round, students completed four sets of eight questions timed at 10 minutes each. Dominic Mondati placed fourth, Brisa Nelis placed sixth, Skylar Kuss placed eighth and Makaya Gauthier placed tenth.

The final part was a team competition, which included three rounds of 10 questions, each timed at 15 minutes. Cloquet's Team 1 placed fourth. Team members included Skylar Kuss, Kallie Lorenz, Will Buytaert, Mareike Rosebrock and Brisa Nelis. The other two CMS teams placed fifth and seventh.

The mission of Math Masters is to provide math competitions to challenge students and schools to use critical thinking skills and problem-solving abilities.

It promotes math skills and interest among all students and motivates them to be more interested in math.