Photo by Deb Gau A group fifth grade students concentrate on their papers Thursday during the annual Math Masters event at Southwest Minnesota State University.

MARSHALL — The gymnasium at Southwest Minnesota State University was full, but silent, on Thursday morning.

More than 200 elementary and middle-school students sat at rows of tables, hunched over sheets of math questions or calculators.

But this wasn’t a test — it was a chance for students to have fun and display their math skills.

“You do a little bit of everything,” said Murray County Central sixth graders Lilly Gertsema and Brielle Plotz.

Plotz listed off some of the math topics students had to know: “We do mean, median and mode, area, fractions.”

It was all part of the annual Math Masters event held at the SMSU campus Thursday. A total of 48 teams of fourth, fifth and sixth graders took part in the math challenge, in both individual and team events. The competition is designed to encourage students to use critical thinking and problem-solving skills, organizers said.

Fifteen area schools were represented at the event, including Tracy Area Elementary, Murray County Central’s West Elementary, and Redwood Valley Middle School.

One of the good things about Math Masters was that it’s an event that is open to all students, said Christine Quisley, assistant professor of education at SMSU.

“Everybody is invited,” she said.

Math is also something used everywhere, Quisley said.

“It doesn’t matter what your makeup is, math is a universal language,” she said.

SMSU faculty, and even past graduates were involved with running Thursday’s event. It was exciting to be able to welcome elementary students to campus for Math Masters, they said.

“We’re math people,” said Kandy Noles Stevens, associate professor of education at SMSU, and the event’s emcee. “To us, math is fun.”

Noles Stevens said she hoped events like Math Masters could help challenge the narrative that math is hard, and help make all students feel engaged with the subject.

At the same time, Math Masters organizers made sure to keep the atmosphere fun for students. In between rounds of math challenges, Noles Stevens led the kids in stretching exercises, and told math jokes.

Grant Harms, a sixth grade teacher at Murray County Central, said he brought two teams of sixth graders and one team of fifth graders to Thursday’s event. To get ready for the competition, the students had been meeting after school a couple of days a week since late January, he said.

“We try to keep it fun and enjoyable,” he said. “Some of the sixth graders competed last year as fifth graders.”

Plotz was one of the students who was back at the event for a second year.

“I always liked math,” she said.

Harms said it was fun to be part of Math Masters. Even if the challenges were tough for students, the kids still enjoyed getting to use problem-solving skills and work as a team, he said.

Gertsema and Plotz liked different rounds of the competition best.

“I like the individual rounds,” Gertsema said. Meanwhile, Plotz said she liked the fact drill – an event where students try to solve as many problems as they can within a time limit.

The best part of Math Masters? “Going to this big competition, with all these other people who are good at math,” Plotz said.

“The best part is seeing how you do,” Gertsema said.