Accomplished Visitor Comes with Bag of Math Tricks
Local parent Antonio Medina took time out from his busy work schedule to visit students in the Huntington School District’s Math Olympiad program and share his knowledge of math associations along with a variety of tricks. It proved to be a memorable experience for all concerned.
Mr. Medina is the father of Woodhull Intermediate School students Naomi and Elisa Medina and Jefferson Primary School student Gabriel Medina. Students from the four classes he visited learned how to add five six-digit numbers together using a trick with the number nine to cleverly and easily solve the large addition problem.
The math expert captured the interest of students quickly when he showed them how he already had the answer to this problem as soon as the numbers were written on the board. Children were eager to return to their regular classrooms to show their teachers and friends this trick.
“Looking at number associations and their relationship to one another is a problem solving skill often taught in Math Olympiad classes,” said Maryann Daly, SEARCH chairperson and a teacher in the program. “Mr. Medina, who develops software for an investment firm in the city, told students that you can use mathematical models to predict what might happen with future investments in stocks and bonds. He is responsible for programming the math models, which gives information to the investment bankers to use. They can then better advise their clients in making sound judgments and hopefully predict which areas in the stock market could be good investments.”
Another attention grabber was when Mr. Medina shared his own experiences in elementary school and his frustration remembering the nine times table. He also demonstrated how to multiply a large number by eleven, using yet another math trick.
There was an intriguing demonstration on the importance of the decimal system and how it is used in everyday lives. Because his job is writing programs for computers (and computers only understand the binary system-base two), Mr. Medina went on to explain how he had to interpret our base ten system and then read it in the binary system. For example, the number 10110 in the binary system would be equivalent to 22 in our decimal system. With his guidance, the students were able to correctly interpret the value of each digit. He also went on to explain the definition of bits, bytes, megabytes and gigabytes, which are familiar terms used when referring to the operations and components in a computer.
“We appreciate Mr. Medina volunteering his valuable time and expertise,” Mrs. Daly said. “The students understood the association between understanding math models and concepts and their importance in the career choices they make in future years. Parent involvement and support is a vital component to everyday learning. Knowledge is power and we are grateful that Mr. Medina shared his time and knowledge with us.”
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