A student from Quantum Academy, whose mascot is a Quark, was called upon to define the word Quark. She gave a letter perfect definition, a quark is an elementary particle from which all matter is made.
The auditorium of the Del Dios Academy of Arts and Sciences was packed with students, their parents and Escondido Union School District staff last Saturday.
The Math Field Day brought together 160 fifth and sixth-graders in teams of six that competed on math problems as teams, not individuals.
After a rousing greeting and pep rally by Superintendent Luis Ibarra, student teams paired off to compete in classrooms.
They were given math problems and worked together to find solutions. Proctors huddled to compile data and grades to come up with the winning teams.
After the math competition, students took part in the “Float A Boat” event.
They were challenged to create
Superintendent Luis Rankins-Ibarra, at left, leads the award ceremony for the EUSD Math Field Day in Del Dios Academy’s auditorium. A large number of parents, 160 competing students and dozens of EUSD staffers came together to further math education in the district.
Student teams pressed in close and counted along with supervising educators as the tiny boats filled with coins. Shouts of joy and exasperation resounded in the quad as students saw their team results.
As the teachers and principals who judged the students gathered the scores, the principal of Del Dios Academy gave the Times-Advocate a short dissertation on the school.
Principal Albert Ngo
Bear Valley School’s team won top honors at the Math Field Day last Saturday at Del Dios Academy. Competing teams of fifth- and sixth-graders solved math problems using teamwork for the competition.
The academy has two modules, STEM, Science Technology Engineering and Math, and VAPA, Visual and Performing Arts.
“We want the students to be able to choose a path, so once they do, they’ll get a sense of a smaller school within a school,” Ngo said. “The idea is to make cross-curricular connections” to encourage students to find a field of knowledge that interests and excites them.
When Academy students are studying fractions, teachers make references to musical notation,
Albert Ngo, principal of Del Dios Academy and his daughter Evelyn attended the Math Field Day and discussed the innovative teaching methods at the Academy. Ngo said the district’s “specialty school” houses Visual and Performing Arts (VAPA) and Science, Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) modules.
“We have an environmental science class and we’re hoping to have a forensics class, maybe a design class, maybe plumbing,” Ngo said. “Throughout the school year we bring in people in jobs that are of interest. We’ve had fashion designers, music engineers, a radio producer come and speak to the kids.”
He added, “We have our youth media awards and multimedia events. We try to highlight as many of the arts as possible. We have an arts festival. We try to capture all the different areas.”
Students love it. “You
Martin Reyes and his mom, Elia Garcia, were on hand to win a certificate for performance of math problems.
Family members filed into the auditorium for the award ceremony. Bear Valley Elementary won the math competition and Quantum Academy, a charter school, came in second.
Math Wizards
Rose – 5th Grade
Ulises Cervantes
Erick Cruz Ramirez
Moises Mendoza
Tina Nguyen
Omar Perez
Lenin Villalobos Santana
Ivan Zuniga
Bear Valley – 6th Grade
Carina Amisano
Eliza Capitulo
Paya Farahanchi
Sam Lesniewski
Alexander McCline
Michael Scott
Alizee Wouters
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