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Math Olympians at the JKU

School students took part in a Math Olympiad preparation day at the JKU.

Preparing for the Math Olympiad; photo credit: JKU
Preparing for the Math Olympiad; photo credit: JKU

School students in the Olympic math courses from schools across Upper Austria were invited to attend, giving the young students an initial taste of student life at a university. The two blocked sessions featured a short presentation followed by trying to solve a number of interesting and tricky math problems. During the morning session, Katharina Rittenschober (Institute of Applied Geometry) went on a "hunt for angles", while during the afternoon session, Zbynek Konecny (Institute of Didactics in Mathematics) demonstrated the power of the "drawer principle". The participants were introduced to important principles, such as: If you distribute n+1 objects to n drawers, then you have to place two or more objects in another drawer.

Students in the JKU's teacher education program for mathematics supervised the sessions and thoroughly enjoyed the young Olympians’ enthusiasm and interest. The third annual Math Olympiad day was organized by Cordula Stroh (FH OÖ Wels), Zoltan Kovacs (PH Linz), and Friedrich Pillichshammer (JKU).