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| 1997-27 |
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
July 31, 1997 |
| Contact: |
Ginger Caldwell Scientific Computing Division National Center for Atmospheric Research Boulder, CO 80307-3000 Telephone: 303-497-1229 E-mail: cal@ucar.edu
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The first-place winner in the Advanced Mathematics category was the team of Tessa Pope and Aba Arthur-Asmah from George Washington High School in Denver. They won for their project, "Is the Relationship between Cheetahs and Gazelles a Symbiotic One?"
Twila Paterson from William J. Palmer High School in Colorado Springs took third-place honors in the Intermediate Mathematics category for "Orbital Stability in Relation to Fractal Dimension."
The Intermediate Mathematics category is for students who have completed either Geometry or Algebra II; Advanced Mathematics is for students who have completed Calculus. The Colorado Computational Science Fair is organized by the National Center for Atmospheric Research and Colorado State University. NCAR is managed by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research under sponsorship by the National Science Foundation.
The winning posters will be on display outside the main computer room at NCAR's Mesa Laboratory (1850 Table Mesa Drive in Boulder) through September.
Ginger Caldwell, a manager in NCAR's Scientific Computing Division, served as one of six judges at the national competition. She noted the wide array of entries, including simulations of heat transfer, meteor showers, and disease evolution. Caldwell added that a successful computational science project must develop a mathematical model for a real problem, compute solutions for the problem under different initial assumptions, and present the results in an understandable, graphical format. "The national competition was really stiff and I'm really proud of our Colorado students' achievement," she said. Students used all types of computers, from desktops to a Cray supercomputer, to solve and graph their results.
The Adventures in Supercomputing (AiS) program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy to introduce high-performance computing methodology to diverse populations of high school students in order to cultivate their interest in mathematics, science, and computing. The program currently encompasses 70 high schools in five states: Alabama, Colorado, Iowa, New Mexico and Tennessee. For more information on AiS in Colorado, see the World Wide Web.
More information on the 1997 Colorado Computational Science Fair and how to enter the 1998 competition may be found on the Web.
To receive UCAR and NCAR press releases by e-mail,
contact Milli Butterworth
telephone 303-497-8601 or by email
butterwo@ucar.edu
The National Center for Atmospheric Research and UCAR Office of Programs are operated by UCAR under the sponsorship of the National Science Foundation and other agencies. Opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of any of UCARs sponsors. UCAR is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer.