By Connor Devereux, Beau Hunter and Elyse Trendell

While the majority of teenagers are using their mornings to sleep in, many high school students find themselves preparing for the approaching school year by attending a fitness-oriented math camp.

                According to Physical Education teacher Angie Kemp, the camp was put together to help struggling students advance in their math skills and provide them with an opportunity to improve their fitness level.

                “The students find the physical fitness part enjoyable,” Kemp said. “The activities we do get the kids moving around and being active.”

Kemp said the students have experienced many different sports over the last five weeks of camp, including frisbee, soccer, basketball and running activities around the track.

She also said these activities are meant to incorporate math data into the sports. They use the data and information they collect in the fitness session in the sports math session.

                “We have the kids take stats and data in certain sports which they use in one of their other classes,” Kemp said.  “This is how we incorporate math with fitness.”

Maggie Button, a MHS sophomore attending the camp, thinks the P.E. section encourages kids to show up and gives them more of a positive outlook on a summer day filled with math.

                “It makes it more fun,” Button said. “It’s a nice break from the math sessions.”

                While Button and many others enjoy the fitness aspect of the camp, there are other reasons for students to attend.

 Jessica Todd, a former math teacher at MHS, said that while the fitness session is fun, the camp also gives the students an opportunity to raise incomplete or failing grades students earned previously in an MHS math class.

                “It is awesome that the students will be able to raise their past grades through this math camp,” Todd said.

                Button agrees with Todd and said she needed to raise her math grade and the camp made this opportunity achievable.

“I got a bad grade in math,” Button said. “If I went, my grade would go to a C.”

Button added that although math camp is not the most exciting thing in the world, she is happy her grade will be improved and the knowledge she learned.

 “Although math camp was not my first choice, I learned a lot and I felt like it was a good experience,” Button said.