Numbers favor Desert Wind in CAC math contest

Desert Wind Middle School captured the team championship, and the duo of Ciara Garcia and Aubrey Chaston won the tandem competition at the 2010 Central Arizona College Middle School Math Contest held Wednesday, Feb. 17, at the Signal Peak Campus.
 
Garcia and Chaston – also representing Desert Wind Middle School – racked up 68 points to outdistance runners-up Aaron Tamaddon and Niles Getz of Maricopa Wells Middle School who totaled 63. As a team, Maricopa Wells finished in second place.
 
Desert Wind also claimed a pair of third-place prizes as the team of Christian Palafox and Taylor Lemaster and the twosome of Rachael Harmon and Kayla Klienjans each posted 59 points.
 
All eight students received Olympic-style medallions for their performances, while all participants were presented with a certificate. All eight medalists are currently in eighth grade.
 
The 2010 CAC Middle School Math Contest featured 46 seventh and eighth grade students separated into 23 teams of two. Each tandem took five tests totaling 90 questions during the competition. Each test is based upon Arizona’s math standards and is modeled after the eighth-grade AIMS (Arizona’s Instrument to Measure Standards) test.
 
CAC will host another middle school math contest for the northern part of Pinal County this Friday, Feb. 19, at the San Tan Center in the Shops at Copper Basin along Hunt Highway. The CAC High School Math Contest will take place in April on the Signal Peak Campus.

Photo caption: Desert Wind Middle School math contest winners from left Aubrey Chaston and Ciara Garcia (1st Place); Christian Palafox and Taylor Lemaster (tied for 3rd place); Kayla Klienjans and Rachael Harmon (tied for 3rd).

Submitted photo