Scott Flansburg, also known as "The Human Calculator" shared his love of mathematics with St. Mary Immaculate's 4^th through 8^th grade students on Thursday, October 21^st. Scott's math skills attest to his nickname because of the remarkable speed and accuracy with which he adds, subtracts, multiplies, and divides. He also does square and cube roots, all in his head.

In his 20-plus years of teaching math, Scott has appeared on several talk shows including Oprah, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Dateline NBC, ABC's Good Morning America, and has spoken at conferences run by NASA.

In one demonstration, he asked students to list five 2-digit numbers to add in his mind. While students gave him the numbers, Flansburg, standing in front of a teacher with a calculator projected on a screen, gave the answer before the numbers could be punched into the calculator. In fact, The Human Calculator holds a Guinness World Record for doing the most calculations in 15 seconds in which he asked for a double-digit number then added it over and over again. His world record is 37 answers in 15 seconds, 2.5 answers per second.

He is also a gifted teacher, dedicated to helping students overcome their fear of math by making math fun and easy. "The key," he says, "is finding the patterns that allow me to add and multiply quickly." He also explained the power of the number 9. With his coaching, students who were convinced they could not do math problems in their head soon had their hands raised to give answers.

Scott challenged the students to practice by showing their parents the "tricks" they learned and to participate in World's Math Day, the largest on-line math competition.

For more information about "The Human Calculator" visit  http://scottflansburg.com/ and http://www.mathletics.com.

St. Mary Immaculate School provides an outstanding Catholic education in both faith and academics for Pre-school students age 3 through Middle School 8th grade. It is located at 15629 S. Rt. 59 in Plainfield. For more information call 815-436-3953. Ask for Mr. John Garvey, Principal or Mrs. Jennifer Errthum, Assistant Principal. Or visit www.smip.org/school.