Santa Barbara Math Ellipse (SBME) has learned that its Elementary Team placed first — out of 115 teams — in the recent Girls’ Adventures in Math (GAIM) competition. To sweeten the win, SBME got a perfect score, the only elementary team in the history of GAIM to do.
Team captain Elena Beckman led SBME members, Sabrina Avolio, Seungyoo Kim-Jung and Miranda Li to victory.
Data show the ratio of girls to boys at math competitions decreases with age. The local Math Super Bowl (for grades 4-6) has a number of girls; the national MATHCOUNTS (for grades 6-8) has significantly fewer; and both local and national high school competitions have even fewer.
That circumstance is one of the reasons Math-M-Addicts of New York City started running GAIM in 2016. It’s all cooperative teamwork, followed by games and other activities. The pre-competition activities include learning about female historical figures who either did mathematics or used it frequently in their work.
Before the pandemic, the event was too far away to attend, but this year it was online. SBME was invited to participate and sent two teams, one Elementary Team (grades 3-5) and one Middle School Team (grades 6-8).
The SBME Middle School Team also did well, placing in the second of five tiers, with team members Elaine Hu, Ariel Li, Jiyoo Kim-Jung and Joy Xie. They were also Regional Award winners, in the top 30% of the Western Region.