A team of five Huntington UFSD fifth grade Math Olympiad students captured third place in the Suffolk County math tournament. The Blue Devils were coached by teacher Jessica Risalvato.
The competition is traditionally held at Stony Brook University, but with the COVID-19 pandemic still ongoing, this year’s tournament played out in a virtual format.
Huntington was among 22 teams that vied in the fifth grade tournament, making the Blue Devils’ third place finish all the more impressive. Each team consisted of five fifth graders, all of whom had spent months training for the competition.
The team from Huntington included Cecilia Lee, Hunter Kline, Sawyer Davis, Harrison Jennings and Bennett Wagner. Mr. Kline also notched a sixth place finish in the individual tournament standings.
“The questions were very difficult, but the students worked so hard and really persevered to solve them,” Ms. Risalvato said. “They had great communication skills during the team competition as well. I’m so proud of them.”
Huntington students do not have to be enrolled in SEARCH to participate in the Math Olympiad program.
The international Math Olympiad program debuted in 1979. There are currently 120,000 students from all 50 US states and 39 countries participating in it. The objectives of the program are to “teach multiple strategies for out-of-the-box problem solving, develop mathematical flexibility in solving those problems and foster mathematical creativity and ingenuity,” according to the organization.