Way back in November, students from University and Woodbridge high schools put their knowledge of algebra, geometry, calculus, programming and other disciplines to the test in the 14th annual High School Mathematical Contest in Modeling.

But this was no ordinary contest.

Organized by the Consortium for Mathematics and its Applications, the über-rigorous competition challenged teams of up to four students to solve one of two real-world conundrums – we’ll tell you more about those in a minute – over the course of 36 consecutive hours. Not only did the teams have to address their specific problem by developing complex mathematical models, they had to submit a paper on it.

Well, the results of that competition came in this month, and it doesn’t take a working knowledge of advanced calculus to know our local participants performed exceptionally well.

Of the 30 Irvine teams that entered, five earned the distinction of “Regional Outstanding,” which is the second highest honor. Keep in mind that only 29 U.S. teams reached this level, and 17 percent were from IUSD. (Feel free to check our math on that.)

In addition, 10 Irvine teams earned “Honorable Mention,” another 10 reached the “Meritorious” level and five earned the “Successful Participant” designation.

Overall, 435 teams from 80 schools participated in the 2011 High School Mathematical Contest in Modeling, according to David Gesk, who organized Woodbridge’s squads. Uni High’s Patsy Janda and Stephanie Chang did the same for their school, and all of the teams received a little extra coaching courtesy of Dr. Sarah Eichhorn from UCI’s math department.

So what were the dilemmas that required such top-notch problem-solving skills?

One asked students to develop a comprehensive 10-year plan for maintaining the International Space Station – complete with costs, payloads and flight schedules – in light of the fact that NASA has mothballed its fleet of Space Shuttles. Students had to factor in a number of statistical assumptions, including the capacity of the space station, the cost of transporting materials into space, the viability of commercial expeditions and the duration of typical missions.

A second, closer-to-Earth option posed a pair of twin scenarios in which a small item had been lost in a park and a jogger had similarly gone missing on a 5-mile run. Again, given a number of assumptions, the teams had to determine how they’d go about locating the object and the jogger, and they had to calculate their chances of success.

Uni’s Janda said the students didn’t know what problems they’d be solving until they signed on to a contest website. At that point, they had only 36 hours to strategize, research and develop math models that would apply. With the clock ticking, students employed everything from algebra and geometry to advanced calculus and programming, she said.

“While most math competitions are geared toward the high academic students on timed problems, similar to a math test, this contest asked students to really use their critical thinking skills,” Janda said, “and students from all levels of academic achievement and grades participated.”

“There are no correct answers to the problems,” she added. “Teams were judged on the basis of how they presented their model, analysis and conclusion in a formal paper.”

Irvine’s teams clearly made an impression. For a complete breakdown of the results, click here.

Earlier this week, students from Rancho San Joaquin Middle School’s introductory Chinese class led a campus-wide celebration of the Chinese New Year.

After researching the holiday, students made special displays to usher in the Year of the Dragon, while parents assisted with food and decorations for the Jan. 23 event.

This is the second year that Rancho has offered its Chinese language course, which has almost doubled in enrollment, according to teacher Joy Chao.

The Carrs are definitely going places.

It wasn’t that long ago that Katherine Carr, an Irvine High School junior, and sister Jacqueline, an eighth-grader at Venado Middle School, were submitting news releases about school events to the IUSD NewsFlash.

Now they’ve become regular contributors to The Orange County Register’s website, covering stories at the request of the newspaper’s editors.

This month, the sisters collaborated on an article about 9-year-old Marissa Wendt, a.k.a. “TinyTechie,” who blogs about kid-friendly technologies and Internet safety. And Katherine had another recent story about students from her school’s National Honor Society raising money for the Salvation Army.

“They are also covering a National History Day event at Sierra Vista Middle School in February,” said the girls’ mother, Caroline Carr.

We’ll keep an eye out for that one, as well as future reports. Just don’t forget us when you’re at The New York Times.

A Northwood High School junior has been named a finalist in a global contest that challenged teens to design science experiments that can be performed in space.

Pranav Singh is one of 60 students, including just 10 from the United States, to make the cut in the YouTube Space competition, which was sponsored by YouTube, Lenovo and Space Adventures, in cooperation with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

Now the rest of us have a chance to help select six regional winners. Through Tuesday, Jan. 24, the YouTube community can vote for their favorite entries online. A panel of judges that includes none other than Stephen Hawking and some pretty smart folks from NASA will also weigh in.

Pranav’s experiment seeks to study the effects of microgravity on the genetic recombination rates of the Drosophila melanogaster, which is more commonly known as the fruit fly. You can check out his video presentation here and vote once per day.

“It feels great to have the opportunity to become a finalist,” Pranav said. “However, more than the title itself, I cherish the support I have received from my family and friends and would especially like to thank my teachers at Northwood.”

The six regional winners are expected to be announced in February, and a month later they’ll gather in Washington, D.C., to experience a zero-gravity flight and receive laptops from Lenovo. Two global winners will ultimately have their experiments performed 250 miles above the Earth aboard the International Space Station. That event will be streamed live on YouTube.

We expect to see some pretty thought-provoking projects at IUSD’s 31st annual District Science Fair, which will be held on Wednesday, Feb. 29 at University High School.

As you may recall, last year’s entries included “The Effect of the Presence or Absence of Color on the Accuracy of Eyewitness Identifications,” “More Than Just Luck: Rock, Scissors, Paper and Decision-Making,” and our personal favorite, “The Role of the Parabrachial Nucleus in Regulation of Cardiac Sympathoexcitatory Reflexes Evoked by Bradykinin.”

The 2012 edition, sure to also feature student research that is both creative and way over our head, will once again be brought to you by the generous support of the Broadcom Foundation and the Irvine Public Schools Foundation.

Parents are encouraged to check with their child’s school or science teacher to learn more about the requirements and deadlines for entering the fair. And while you’re at it, you may want to check out the Orange County Science & Engineering Fair rules and regulations as your young scientist prepares his or her project.

Note that students must participate in the District Science Fair to be eligible to register for the OCSEF. In addition, they must meet the following criteria:

• In grades six through eight, only Division Award winners (those who received blue ribbons) may register for the OCSEF.
• In grades nine through 12, students who participated in IUSD’s Science Fair may register for the OCSEF, regardless of whether they won a ribbon.
• Individual and group projects may be submitted for all grades.

For more information, visit the OCSEF website.

Over the last few years, IUSD has grown accustomed to operating in an environment of fiscal uncertainty, as state lawmakers have often deferred decisions and provided little in the way of concrete information while grappling with California’s budget crisis.

It now appears that uncertainty will continue. This month, Gov. Jerry Brown released his initial budget proposal for the 2012-13 fiscal year, and it seems to have generated more questions than answers.

The key takeaway is that the spending plan, revealed Jan. 5, is heavily reliant on a November ballot initiative that would temporarily raise taxes for high-income earners and increase the sales tax by a half-cent through 2016. If the measure passes, funding for schools would remain flat, according to the governor’s proposal. If the initiative is rejected by voters, K-12 education could be slashed by an additional $4.8 billion.

Either way, school districts are required to submit their budgets by the end of June, and some staffing decisions must be made sooner than that. John Fogarty, IUSD’s assistant superintendent of business services, said Irvine will work to have contingencies in place should the November ballot initiative fail.

Keep in mind that Gov. Brown’s proposal is merely a starting point for budget discussions that could last for months. The next fiscal milestone at the state level is May, when Brown is expected to release a revised spending plan based on the latest economic data.

Meanwhile, representatives from IUSD and other districts are closely scrutinizing details of the governor’s proposal for their own budget deliberations. Education officials hope to learn more at an upcoming budget workshop hosted by experts from School Services of California.

Just a reminder that all IUSD schools will be closed on Monday, Jan. 16 in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The federal holiday marking the birthday of the late Dr. King is observed annually on the third Monday of January.

We’ll see you back at school on Tuesday, Jan. 17, and while we’re on the subject, we should point out that the first Board of Education meeting of 2012 will be held that day. It’s scheduled to start at 6:30 p.m.

For more calendar information than you probably need, click here.

When the California Music Educators Association holds its annual All-State Orchestra performance next month, 112 of the state’s finest high school musicians will take the stage to form an ensemble of young all-stars.

Stunningly, no fewer than 26 of them will be from the Irvine Unified School District.

CMEA, which organizes the concert along with the California Orchestra Directors Association and the California Band Directors Association, recently announced this year’s winners on its website. Given that there are more than 1,000 school districts in California, it’s a pretty big deal just to have a few students participate. To boast 23 percent of the entire orchestra – well, that’s something else entirely.

Students in grades nine through 12 auditioned for the All-State Orchestra by submitting CDs of their work, and only the best of the best were selected to perform on Sunday, Feb. 19 at the William Saroyan Theatre in Fresno.

“This is an incredible accomplishment, and I’m so proud of all our student-musicians who tried out,” said Brad Van Patten, IUSD’s coordinator of visual and performing arts. “At the same time, I can’t say enough about our exceptional music staff, which put in countless hours to help prepare students and to record their auditions.”

Van Patten also praised the Irvine Company for its efforts to bolster music education, along with art and science. In 2006, the company launched its Excellence in Education Enrichment Fund, pledging $20 million over 10 years to help IUSD pay for specialists in grades four, five and six.

“This has been an extraordinarily successful program by any measure,” Van Patten said this week. “The students who are now distinguishing themselves in high school and college were the early beneficiaries of the Irvine Company’s generous donation, which has established a foundation for success in the arts and beyond.”

To see a list of this year’s All-State Orchestra performers, click here.

Our very own Lakeside Middle School is in the running for the highest honor bestowed upon K-12 campuses in the U.S.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson announced on Jan. 10 that Lakeside was among 35 sites nominated by California for the 2012 National Blue Ribbon Program, which recognizes academic powerhouses as well as the nation’s most improved schools.

“These schools all share a deep commitment to the education and well-being of their students,” Torlakson said. “We’ve recognized them on the state level, and now I hope their outstanding work and remarkable progress will be further spotlighted nationally.”

Each year, the U.S. Department of Education spells out the specifics for states to follow when nominating prospective Blue Ribbon schools, and in 2012 there were two categories:

Exemplary High-Performing Schools included those with the top rates of students scoring proficient or advanced in English and math on state assessments, while Exemplary Improving Schools featured campuses with a large percentage of socioeconomically disadvantaged students that made outstanding strides in the same core subjects.

Either way, schools had to hit their federal and state targets in 2010 and 2011 just to be eligible for a nomination.

Lakeside did all that and more, posting a 937 on California’s most recent Academic Performance Index, which measures achievement on a scale of 200 to 1,000 based on standards tests. In 2010, Lakeside was also named the top middle school in the county by The Orange County Register.

To officially make the cut as a Blue Ribbon winner, all 35 nominees are required to meet their federal and state goals again in 2012. Moreover, all of their numerically significant subgroups have to do the same. The final nomination check will be completed in August or September, according to the state education officials.

Overall, the Irvine Unified School District has produced 13 Blue Ribbon schools since 1983. You can learn more about the Blue Ribbon program here.

Some very cool student inventions will be showcased later this month at the 25^th annual Astounding Inventions contest.

The event, presented by Greenberg Traurig LLP and the Irvine Valley College Foundation, is set to take place on Saturday, Jan. 28, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in Irvine Valley College’s Hart Gymnasium.

Established to promote student interest in math and science, Astounding Inventions annually features the handmade innovations of Irvine and Tustin students in kindergarten through the eighth grade. Last year’s award-winning entries included the “Nod Off Neutralizer” and the “Solar Power Fridge.”

As per usual, the public will be able to check out all of the inventions for free on the day of the event. Oh, and there will also be stage shows and interesting science displays, including a real human brain, a “Make-A-Quake” earthquake exhibit, water rockets and virtual reality technology.

For more information, click here.