More than 200 students from across Nebraska filled Westside High School — not for a basketball game, but for a battle of numbers.
Westside hosted its second annual math competition Jan. 17, welcoming middle and high school teams from across the state. Students competed in written exams and fast-paced buzzer rounds, a format far different from a typical math classroom.
The competition is sponsored by Dr. Angela Mosier, chair of Westside’s math department. With help from the school’s math team and Math Honor Society, Mosier helped organize the event for its second year.
Mosier said the competition was created to give students more opportunities to compete in math and to expand access to academic contests in eastern Nebraska.
“So working with the math coach from Scottsbluff High School, who I’ve known for quite a while through other state math organizations, we kind of talked about if we could get another competition in the eastern part of the state,” Mosier said. “Knowing the facilities we have at Westside, we decided, ‘Let’s go ahead and give this a shot.’”
What began as a new opportunity has quickly grown into a statewide event.
“Since the first event, we had maybe 125 students in our middle and high school total participate,” Mosier said. “This year it grew to 26 schools representing middle and high school students, and we almost doubled our student number. It was definitely a big change, which takes a lot more prep work on the backside.”
Mosier said she hopes the competition continues to grow, inspiring more students to pursue math and encouraging more girls to see themselves in competitive STEM spaces.
The event brings together students who enjoy problem-solving, teamwork and challenge. Now in its second year, it has become one of the only large-scale math competitions hosted at a Nebraska high school.
Senior BingYi Wang said the competition plays an important role in inspiring younger students.
“I think it’s really cool to see how the middle schoolers are inspired over time,” Wang said. “They might come in nervous or overwhelmed by the questions, but after interacting with high schoolers and watching the buzzer rounds, you can see their eyes light up. They realize, ‘I can do this,’ and ‘I want to do this in the future.’”
With sharpened skills and school pride on the line, Westside’s math competition is proving that numbers can bring students together — one problem at a time.
