Math and Science Field day with Farhan Tahsin
The fields of math and science are rapidly expanding for careers, in response, high schools and colleges are offering more events and classes to keep up with this boom. One event is the Math and Science Field day held by Scottsdale Community College. We sat down with Farhan Tahsin, a member of the math club who participated in the field day and asked him to tell us about the field day.
Q: What is the Science and Math field day? How many people were there? Is it a statewide event or just district-wide?
A: It was an event involving a series of contests related to math and science hosted by the Scottsdale Community College, with gift cards and scholarships for Scottsdale Community College offered as prizes. Our school took 12 students, and there were 14 high schools from the greater Phoenix area there, so there were around 200 students.
Q: How did you hear about this? Why did you decide to participate? Who holds the event and why do they hold it?
A: The school Math Club sent its members a survey asking whether they want to participate, and I said I would like to go. I decided to participate because I realized that this would be an opportunity to learn more about math and science and become better in those fields. The Scottsdale Community College holds this event annually to give students interested in math and science an opportunity to learn more and compete in these fields.
Q: How does the field day work? How long did it last?
A: All members that wanted to go had to sign permission slips and check-in slips, which would be given to Mrs. Craft. When we arrived at Scottsdale Community College, we got ourselves registered and then viewed the different tables that had exhibits showing math and science applications in the real world. After that, the math and science contests were held simultaneously, followed by the project competition. Once the results came, three schools advanced to the final competition, which involved both math and various fields of science. After the final competition had taken place, awards were given out to top scoring individuals, teams, and schools. All this lasted around five and half hours.
Q: Did you have to practice for it? If so, how did you practice, and for how long?
A: Practice wasn’t mandatory, but it was recommended. I practiced 30 minutes in each of the two days before the event by doing math contest questions from previous years and checking my solutions with the answer key.
Q: Do you think you will do it again next year?
A: I think I will try to do it again next year because it was really cool to go to a community college and compete with other schools from across the state. If I go in junior or senior year, I might compete in the science or project competitions instead of math.
Q: How can others join in to do this?
A: This opportunity was presented by the Math Club to its members. If you want to participate in events like this, join Math Club!
Like he said, if you are interested in the Field Day next year or the other many events the math club holds, you can join it by talking to Mrs. Craft. Go Knights!
