Moody’s Mega Math Challenge 2011

Registration is now open! Go to http://m3challenge.siam.org/participate/ to participate.
Moody’s Mega Math (M3) Challenge is an Internet-based, applied math contest for high school juniors and seniors. Participating teams are required to solve an open-ended, applied math-modeling problem focused on a real-world issue in 14 hours. Now in its sixth year, the competition is open to high schools in 18 states along the East Coast. Winners receive scholarships totaling $100,000 toward the pursuit of higher education. Registration and participation are free. The goal of the Challenge is to introduce applied mathematics to students as a powerful problem-solving tool, as a viable and exciting profession, and as a vital contributor to advances in an increasingly technical society.
Up to two teams of three to five high school students from each school are eligible to participate. Students select their preferred Challenge day to work, Saturday, March 5, or Sunday, March 6, 2011. Teams have 14 hours on their selected day during Challenge weekend to independently solve an open-ended, realistic problem, using any free, publicly available, and inanimate sources of information. The problem is completely unknown to them until they login on their selected Challenge day. There are several sample problems available on the Challenge website for practice.
Solutions are judged on the approach and methods used and the creativity displayed in problem-solving and math-modeling. There is no unique, correct answer and partial solutions are accepted. Students participating in past challenges have tackled everything from the numbers behind the U.S. Census to the effect of the stimulus package on the American economy to determining the unintended consequences of ethanol as biofuel.
To become a teacher-coach, teachers must register their teams before 5:00 p.m. ET on Friday, February 25, 2011. Teacher-coaches are not required to be physically with or near their teams on Challenge day and are prohibited from helping their teams during the Challenge itself. Teacher-coaches select the teams, submit registration information, communicate the contest rules and guidelines to students, receive contest communications, and if possible, prepare the teams for the Challenge. Teacher-coaches whose teams submit a viable solution paper receive an appreciation gift.
All information about the Challenge can be found at:
http://m3challenge.siam.org/