Spirit Fund – Read Miyu’s Story
The generosity of the Island School community means that the Spirit Fund now plays a key role in the school’s development and success. The senior students’ Asia Maths Competition was supported by the Spirit Fund.
Competition medal winner, Year 12, student Miyu Terashima tells us what happened at the 3 day competition in Korea this month and how it affected her.
I wanted to go to Seoul, Korea because I wanted to do Maths that would challenge me, challenge my creativity.
Everyone at the competition was a secondary school student, from different schools and countries; China, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Malaysia, Vietnam, India and Myanmar. There were nine rounds, some the traditional paper based, but some required us to work in teams creating videos, posters or creating an actual model to answer a mathematical question.
As a school team we had to build a model hover craft with a limited amount of time and materials. The hover craft had to move forward by itself without drag.
No one really knew how to do it so we just had to tackle it using different methods. Not a lot of teams were successful in the end. It was a really challenging task and it really required us to think but it was also really fun.
In the Code Breaker Round we were given a sequence and we had to solve the values in 10sec. There was some outstanding performance from Island School. It was really amazing to see!
We had more time to do the posters and the videos but it was a tight schedule we really had to push ourselves. All the rounds pushed me out of my comfort zone.
The Inspiration Round was maybe the one I enjoyed the most. We toured around the Namsan Seoul Tower. We had the freedom to write our own research question about something that interested us mathematically in that area.
We worked in two types of team the school team, and the buddy team – groups of three randomly mixed together. The school team worked well together but so did my buddy team. We were all focused on a goal, we got to know each other really quickly. We tackled questions together and this created a bond between us.”
At the end of the competition there was a formal dinner where we were presented with medals and those that made the World Maths competition were announced. Over all our school came 5th out of all the students that participated.”
I use to have the perspective that there is only an answer to a question (and of course there is an answer) but from this competition I learnt that I can be more creative – challenge the question, and not just look at Maths as a single track approach. There are different methods to reach an answer.”
I think Maths is about the ability to create numerous solutions. You can apply this to normal life situations and not just questions on a page. The competition itself was a whole new experience for me, I have never been to anything like it before. I think what I really brought back was the different perspectives that people have. Everyone had a different approach to their learning. They all had a different passion and that inspired me. I thought it was a life changing experience – there were people who were engaged in things I had never seen before and it made me want to investigate more.
Please consider a gift to the Spirit Fund. Please state in the, PayPal note section, where you would like your donation to go, Spirit Fund, Island School Trust Scholarship, The Nicola Myers Kenneth McBride Fund or the John Ying Wah Gibson Memorial Fund. A tax deductible receipt is available on request for donations over $100 contact School@online.island.edu.hk
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