ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, December 18, 1996 TAG: 9612180015
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-4 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Mona Shelat can still surprise her teachers.
A sixth-grader at Short Pump Middle School in Henrico County, Mona makes straight A's year after year. She has taken numerous advanced courses and currently is enrolled in eighth-grade algebra.
But what she accomplished earlier this year still has her teachers talking.
As a fifth-grader at Short Pump Elementary, Mona formulated a conjecture that explains how to find the perimeter of linearly hinged regular unit polygons - figures arranged side-by-side. Her work was published in AIMS Magazine, a national teaching magazine, last month.
``I was amazed,'' said Donna Dalton, Mona's math teacher last year at Short Pump Elementary. ``This is certainly not the norm for a fifth-grader.''
Dalton's class was studying hinged polygons in March when Mona noticed a pattern. She realized that the first and the last polygons in the series each were missing one side, while all the other polygons were missing two sides each.
She approached Dalton with her findings, and her teacher encouraged her to pursue it. Mona took foam polygons home and came up with an equation that states: ``In a linearly hinged symmetrical polygonal structure, the perimeter equals (2s-2) + (n-2)(s-2), where n equals the number of hinged regular polygons and s equals the number of sides of the unit polygon.''
She then tested her equation on linearly hinged octagons, hexagons and squares.
``It worked on all of them,'' said Mona, 11. ``I was excited because I figured it out and it worked.''
Dalton contacted the AIMS (Activities Integrating Math and Science) Foundation, which agreed to publish the finding, titled Mona's Polygon Conjecture.
The national magazine is published 10 times a year and has a circulation of about 15,000. Teachers, kindergarten through ninth grade, are the target audience. The magazine usually features the work of teachers, not students.
Betty Cordel, editor of AIMS Magazine, praised Mona's Conjecture. ``We thought it showed great thought and great communication skills. We were very impressed with that.''
For Mona and her family, the accomplishment comes as no big surprise. It took her just 30 minutes to formulate the equation.
``She is a bright student, and she works very hard,'' said her mother, Rita. ``We are very proud of her.''
The older of two children, Mona spends most of her evenings studying or reading - mysteries are her favorite - because she loves school, she said, not because she is worried about grades.
``Math has always been my favorite subject,'' Mona said. ``It comes pretty easily to me. And it's fun. It can be really challenging because you have to really work to figure things out.''
But math is not her only passion. Mona loves to dance, play basketball and swim. She also works on the school newspaper.
``Sometimes math can be a little boring,'' she said. ``These other activities help get my mind off math.''
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