A Journey Beyond Numbers: Mathventure 2025 Builds Confidence and Community, Ends COA-M Award Drought for AMS
A Journey Beyond Numbers: Mathventure 2025 Builds Confidence and Community, Ends COA-M Award Drought for AMS
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October 30, 2025 | By Brose Torreon (2-BS AMDSc)
The Ateneo Math Society (AMS) marked a major milestone as one of its flagship projects, Mathventure 2025: Alice’s Quest, won the Lalahon: Community Engagement Project of the Year Award from the Council of Organizations of the Ateneo-Manila (COA-M) on May 29, 2025. This project was spearheaded by Marcus Sean Tansiongkun (3 BS AMDSc) and Sarah Elisabeth Sion (4 AB MEc).
Mathventure 2025 (MV) was a three-day event: the first day consists of a campus tour, a mathematics quiz bee in the second, and an amazing race on the final day. These three days are also packed with talks and lectures from different math professors of the Ateneo and different math majors. This project was designed to spark curiosity, joy, and deeper appreciation for mathematics among Grades 9 and 10 students across the country. In the words of Marcus, “the event (is) more fun and easy-going than serious” and “where participants are free to enjoy and express themselves with others.”
Day 1: Mathventure teams tour around the Ateneo campus while completing fun challenges
Dr. Christian Chan Shio discusses applications of math in real life in one of the event's lectures
Day 2: Participants work with their teams in a math quiz bee
Day 3: Participants and winning teams are recognized with certificates and tokens
MV25 marked the project’s return to onsite engagement after years of operating online due to pandemic restrictions. As such, the project heads expanded their approach to make the event more engaging for the students. They partnered with the Office of Social Concern and Involvement (OSCI) to integrate the event with the tutorials of the NSTP-CWTS program, bringing in the tutees from Judge Feliciano Belmonte Sr. High School as participants in the event and its lectures and quizzes for free.
The collaboration between AMS and its partner community demonstrated a sense of camaraderie and mutual commitment to the propagation of education and mathematics appreciation for all. Throughout the planning and implementation, close coordination with the partner school was maintained, while feedback from the community was incorporated. This made the event improve as the succeeding days passed by, since the project heads adapted the comments and suggestions that were made on the previous days.
The project left a clear and lasting impact on the students. Justine, a current Grade 11 student from Makati Science High School and a past participant of MV 25, reminisced that “Mathventure really rekindled [his] passion for math and [he] loved the feeling of studying math without being pressured as if it was required.” This shows that MV not only nurtured a deeper appreciation for mathematics, but also helped students in their abilities in the aforementioned fields. So much so that in the feedback, some students were motivated to pursue academic excellence and a newly formed love for mathematics, while also highlighting the friendships they had formed throughout the event, both among themselves and with their student facilitators.
And it was in these moments of socialization that Marcus also had his own quest towards personal development. He admitted that he was “definitely pushed out of (his) comfort zone to become more outgoing” as being a project head means communicating with several sectors, core team members, and students. Despite this, he embraced the change and became more confident in the interactions he had—a transformation that later led to his appointment as the AMS Mathematics Application Department Head.
Elisa experienced a similar journey. While she had “a lot of silent doubts” at the start, the experience strengthened her self-confidence, project management, and people skills. “Much more than this,” she shared, “I became more appreciative and motivated to give back and contribute to the community.”
Together, they ventured through project management and had a great time during the event’s growth, while having a deeper bond outside the project. “Initially, I was careful around Marcus because he seemed very serious,” Elisa laughed. “But as we worked together, whether staying up late updating documents or geeking out over FPS games, we grew closer, grounded by our shared vision and values we had for the project.”
This spirit of collaboration lies at the heart of what AMS strives to be. The quest for math appreciation is ever-present in such organizations. But what makes these quests exceptional is how the project heads, the core team, and students from various sectors interact and bond to create a rapport that has never been seen before. And it was in these small moments with people that Lalahon’s harvest truly became fruitful; a cornucopia of accolades that grew from the seeds that two project heads—two friends—and a dedicated core team sown.
Alice’s Quest may have concluded, but the wonder still lingers.
Learn more about Mathventure at facebook.com/AMSMathventure.
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