Mathematic success

Mike Sciacca

If the length of the edge of a cube is increased by 50%, what is the

percent increase in the volume of the cube?

You’ve heard the term, “practice, practice, practice.” Well, practice

has paid off for some very determined students at Dwyer Middle School.

Each knew how to work out the aforementioned problem.

Teams from 21 schools from the Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley,

Newport Beach, Aliso Viejo, Costa Mesa, Garden Grove, Irvine, Laguna

Hills, Mission Viejo, Rancho Santa Margarita, San Clemente, San Juan

Capistrano and Tustin gathered at UC Irvine recently to compete in the

regional Mathcounts competition.

It was the four-man team from Dwyer, consisting of eighth-grade

students William Kaluzny, Jennifer Peterson, Beatrice Lim and

seventh-grader Tuan Hoang, that returned to campus with the first place

trophy.

The Dwyer foursome will represent the region at the state Mathcounts

competition scheduled for March 16 at UC Irvine.

“These students did an outstanding job and made us all here at Dwyer

very proud,” said Farley Burgess, a Dwyer math teacher.

The road to this competition involved a lot of work from 32 Dwyer

students, who took an elective math class during the first semester,

which involved doing hundreds of math problems. These students then took

the Mathcounts school competition test to determine who would earn a spot

on the four-man Dwyer team. Those four students, along with first and

second alternate teams, practiced nine hours a week, before and after

school, doing hundreds of problems once again, Burgess said.

The students were prepped for the regional competition with the help

of their coaches, Dwyer Mathcounts competition alumni Ryan Wu and Hiroki

Terashima, both currently students at Huntington Beach High.

* MIKE SCIACCA is the education and sports reporter. He can be reached

at (714) 965-7171 or by e-mail at michael.sciacca@latimes.com.