Harlan County High School will be the host site for the 2025 MATHCOUNTS competition for sixth through eighth grade students from Bell and Harlan County middle schools on Saturday.
Sponsored by the Pine Mountain Chapter of the Kentucky Society of Professional Engineers, individuals and teams competing will represent schools from Cumberland, Lone Jack, Middlesboro, James A. Cawood, Harlan, Black Mountain, Bell Central, Cawood, Rosspoint, Pineville, Wallins and Right Fork schools.
Students compete for awards, including college scholarships. Early rounds of the competition are closed to the public, but the Countdown Round is open to the public.
The competition will be held in the Harlan County High School cafeteria. Those attending should enter through the door near the school greenhouse.
Founded in 1983, MATHCOUNTS is a national enrichment program that helps students who love math, and students who fear math. Through the use of lively and challenging math competitions, Mathletes gain leadership skills, problem solving techniques and a general understanding for solving problems in real world situations.
Mathletes compete in individual and team competitions, teaching students to utilize the real-life skills necessary to work in a team setting as well as how to solve difficult problems on their own.
The MATHCOUNTS program enhances the current education model by providing business related leadership skills during the middle school years, or 6th through 8th grades. In short, MATHCOUNTS is preparing the future leaders of your organization.
As the first program of its kind, MATHCOUNTS has the experience and a proven track record ensuring that the system is successful. Mathletes are extremely enthusiastic about the competitions and encouraged by the results that they obtain, and as business leaders we are encouraged by the results we see.
MATHCOUNTS competition is designed to be completed in approximately three hours. Each competition consists of four parts: Sprint, Target, Team and Countdown Rounds,” said Corey Napier, a professional engineer for Johnson, Mirmiran & Thompson.
“The Sprint Round has 30 questions, and students have 40 minutes to complete them,” he said. “The Target Round consists of eight questions distributed to the students two at a time. Students have six minutes to complete each pair of problems. The Team Round has 10 problems for the team to work together within the 20-minute time limit. The top 25 percent of individuals, up to a maximum of 10, proceed to the Countdown Round, an oral round in which students compete head-to-head.”
MATHCOUNTS is one of the most successful education partnerships involving volunteers, educators and industry sponsors and students.
The organization’s mission statement is to increase enthusiasm for and enhance achievement in middle school mathematics throughout the United States, he said. It is supported primarily by the Kentucky Society of Professional Engineers, the National Council for Teachers of Mathematics and the CAN Foundation.
For more information visit MATHCOUNTS.org.