MSMS’s chapter of Mu Alpha Theta has their work cut out for them in the upcoming weeks with a plethora of competitions heading their way.

Mu Alpha Theta has had a busy year already with competitions like Math Madness, in which they have performed tremendously. “We have only lost to one opponent,” said a proud Mrs. Lauren Zarandona, one of the sponsors of Mu Alpha Theta.

In competitions like Math Madness and the recently underway Ala-La-Miss, students are asked to answer a series of timed questions online and are allowed to see how they placed against their competitors immediately.

MSMS’s chapter of Mu Alpha Theta does not only participate in math competitions from all over the country, but they also host their own.The next competition Mu Alpha Theta will be hosting is the Superstars competition which will be held on Nov. 8, in which the most talented students from eight different elementary schools will be competing.

This competition is aimed for young students who often find their math courses a little too easy; it is designed to “take students who math is really easy to them and give them problems that are harder,” stated Zarandona. This is the second year that MSMS has hosted the Superstars math competition.

The students participating in the Superstars competition were given problem sets at their home schools and the highest ranking students were chosen to attend. Approximately 150 students will be participating in the competition.

What these students do not know is the massive amount of work that goes on behind the scenes while putting on an event like this. Some of this work fell on the shoulders of Haley Hsu, Vice president of Mu Alpha Theta’s outreach operations, who was tasked with writing all the questions for the competition.

Hsu uses the questions in the competition to teach young students important lessons, stating “I hope that the competitions excite students and show that math isn’t just about answering problems from a textbook. … I want kids to know that another major skill of math is logic/reasoning and problem-solving.”

The Superstars competition is only one of the many programs that the MSMS Mu Alpha Theta outreach program will be conducting this year, with the goal of inspiring the love of math within countless students from all over the state.