The U of A team organized by assistant professor Jeremy Van Horn-Morris recently scored the "High Team Achievement," for being part of the second 10 percent ranked of all Division E teams in the 39th annual Mathematical Olympiads for Elementary & Middle Schools (MOEMS) competition. 

Taking place from October 2017 through March 2018, the team of 34 scholars from the Northwest Arkansas area participated in MOEMS under the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences' Department of Mathematical Sciences and was hosted by the Fayetteville Public Library.

In addition to team placement, Soren Schmidt (Division M) and Ezra Van Horn (Division E) made perfect scores and received the George Lenchner award, named after the founder of MOEMS. These placements have been made publically available on the MOEMS 2017-2018 Honor Roll.

University of Arkansas MOEMS Team

"Our MOEMS team is made up of two groups," Horn-Morris said. "One group meets with me weekly at the Fayetteville Public Library from September through March."

The second group is part of the Washington Elementary School Math Club, lead by Bhuvana Viswanathan.

"Between the two groups we had 28 kids participating in MOEMS E team," Horn-Morris said. "This is the second year that we've been doing this and watching the kids improve between years is really rewarding. We were only seven points away (of a possible 250) from ending up in the 'top 10 percent' bracket and everyone's excited to do better next year."

More about MOEMS

MOEMS is an international, annual event with the goals of stimulating enthusiasm and fostering creativity in the field of Mathematics. According to this year's statistics from the MOEMS newsletter, 5,025 teams located in the 49 of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, one U.S. territory, one commonwealth, and 30 foreign countries participated, registering 105,028 students. Of the 96,884 reported scores, the Lenchner was awarded to 391 students (0.4 percent), including the two students from the U of A team. The University of Arkansas was listed in Division E's second 10 percent along with 309 teams.

"One of the best parts of the entire experience for me is the half hour right after each contest where we ask the kids to discuss their answers and the methods they used to solve the problem," Horn-Morris said. "They get so excited and so often their thinking is very clever or unusual, they come up with really exciting connections and they are so proud to share!"