About Caribou

Caribou is an online educational platform offering math learning resources and competitions for students from the start of Elementary School to the end of High School. Participation in some contests and many resources are free. As all resources are completely virtual, they are as well-suited to distance learning, afterschool tutoring, home schooling, and blended learning settings as they are to the traditional school environment.

The Caribou Mathematics Competition or Caribou Cup is an international online math contest held six times over the school year, typically over 2 days in October, November, January, February, April, and May. Each contest is run at the 7 contest levels, Grades K/1, 2, 3/4, 5/6, 7/8, 9/10, and 11/12. Contest questions and solutions are now offered in English, French, Persian, Mandarin, Ukrainian, Khmer, Vietnamese, Bahasa Melayu, and the list keeps growing! All participants receive certificates for participation and achievement, and top-scoring students can earn cash prizes.

Caribou contests differ from other contests in that they:

• are offered six times per school year (October - May),
• are designed to be accessible and enjoyable to students of all levels, not just those who excel in mathematics,
• cater to students from Kindergarten all the way through to grade 12,
• contain interactive questions loved by students,
• feature mathematical puzzles rather than strictly knowledge-based questions,
• require minimal time and effort from schools and teachers since contests are held online and graded automatically,
• come with results and statistics available on the evening after the contest,
• provide 250 video solutions to selected questions,
• offer interactive practice access to contests from previous years and detailed written solutions

All support materials (written solutions, current year and previous years’ contests as online practice tests, online math and logic games, online mini courses) are also available for purchase in the Online Shop without contest participation, so you can join our international math community even if you prefer not to participate in the competition.

Caribou’s online math enrichment content aims to :

1. Create engaging and fun mathematical challenges accessible to all students, from math-averse students to under-stimulated gifted students.
2. Improve students’ problem-solving techniques by providing a wide variety of challenging math activities not based purely on concepts or memorizing formulas but instead on flexible thinking, creativity, logic, and common sense, applicable in the real world.
3. Foster a love for mathematics among students across the globe, lessen their math anxiety, and motivate them to keep learning and not give up when a question seems too hard at first glance.

Caribou Contests is the brainchild of Dr. Thomas Wolf, a German professor of Mathematics at Brock University in Canada. The idea for starting a math contest stemmed from his childhood experiences of participating in a hierarchy of math contests (school, region, province, country). He consulted local schoolboards in the Niagara Region in Canada, seeing the need for an extra-curricular challenge to promote mathematics learning. He founded Caribou Contests Inc., naming it “Caribou” after the Canadian reindeer.

Caribou Contests would be different from traditional math contests in many respects. First, because Dr. Wolf was a full-time professor with little spare time, the contest would take place online. Second, because the contest would be offered online, the questions could be made interactive and more engaging than standard calculations done on paper.  Third, because math is like a sport in that you need constant practice and motivation to get better, there would be multiple contests in a year, with the ability to practice past contest questions and interactive games in exactly the same conditions as the real challenges.

Caribou's first logo!

The two very first Caribou Contests took place in 2009. There was only one level, Grade 3/4, and about 600 participating students. Local businesses donated prizes for the 50 top students, ranging from books, to gift cards, to concert tickets, and even a hockey stick signed by the local team. The contests proved a hit, and Caribou Contests expanded region-wide, offering a second Grade 5/6 level and 6 contest days in the following year.

January 2010 was the first Caribou Contest with a Calcrostic Puzzle question. This puzzle unique to Caribou has become so popular that we feature a daily Calcrostic puzzle on the homepage and we have written a Calcrostic puzzle book for sale in our Online Shop. There is now an interactive Calcrostic game.

The 2010-2011 Caribou Cup saw Caribou go nationwide, with over 3,000 participants across Canada and a new grade 7/8 level. The next 2011-2012 Cup saw the inauguration of the Caribou Contests YouTube channel presenting solutions to popular problems and the introduction of interactive questions on every contest – by the summer of 2013 Caribou had developed 8 such interactive math games, but you can try over 20 of the them now on our Games page.

In 2012 two more contest levels were introduced for grades 9-12. For the first time, Caribou made its content and contests available internationally. Math History questions were added in this year as well, quizzing students’ knowledge on contributions by mathematicians like Sir Isaac Newton, Ada Lovelace, Brahmagupta, or Zu Chongzhi.

Caribou continues to grow, bringing together students from all over the world. As the word spreads, we have gained new partnerships across the globe. The contest is now run all over the world in all time zones, with six contest levels and an ever-growing number of languages, features, interactive games, and participants. After adding the Grade 2 level in 2019 we counted 37,500 active participants in 34 countries!

Our contests and online math enrichment material are the result of an international collaboration between mathematicians, educators, programmers, translators and digital artists.

There are many opportunities to get involved:

• If you would like to organize Caribou Contests for your students, please register as a Caribou Coordinator and read the Contest Coordinator Instructions for detailed instructions on running the contests.
• If you would like to promote Caribou Contests in your community, follow us and spread the word on social media, or print off some of our posters to hang in your local library or community centre.
• If you are interested in representing or translating Caribou for your home country, please check the FAQ. Some positions may already be occupied (see below).

International Partnerships

As Caribou expands internationally, we have teamed up with other educators passionate about mathematics learning. Please contact your country’s representative for information about participating in Caribou locally. For all other countries, please use the page Contact Us. Our team members speak English, French, Spanish, German, Dutch, Khmer, Azerbaijani, Ukrainian, Mandarin, Persian, Urdu, Turkish, and more.