Video Link for Scrapheap Showdown 2025, "Ready, Aim, Flier"

 The Scrapheap Showdown 2025, Ready Aim Flier,  was video taped by Bill Trudell.  Read the blog post.

 Enjoy the video of Scrapheap Showdown 2025, filmed by Bill Trudell ane produced by Joe Constantine and uploaded YouTubd for EdTV for Somerville.

Scrapheap Showdown: "Ready, Aim, Flier!"

 Scrapheap Showdown: Ready, Aim, Flier!

by Erica Dakin Voolich

On October 19th, 16 high school students on six teams gathered in the Breed Memorial Hall at Tufts University to compete in the Somerville Math Fund’s 19th annual Scrapheap Showdown, “Ready, Aim. Flier”.  Our first Scrapheap Showdown was actually 21 years ago in 2005 — we had a hiatus due to COVID.  In the spring of 2005, a group of Somerville High School students came to a meeting to brainstorm ideas for a fun fundraiser to replace a walk around a lake that was ending.  They suggested we do a junkyards war like they watched on TV.  I couldn’t imagine sending students into any of the many junkyards nears Union Square then, so instead we created our own Scrapheap pile that board member Richard Graf collected some unique items from closed mills where he knew the owners.

This year’s problem was to build a catapult.  There were three challenges that would hurl a marble inside a balloon (for breaks on rolling) or a pingpong ball in three different events for distance and accuracy.  The first challenge was distance across the event room floor.  The second was aiming at empty seltzer bottles lined up on the floor. The third was all teams together aiming pingpong balls into a wading pool.  The final event was the two winning teams aiming at a bullseye on the other team’s table.

The usual pile of interesting “junk” was in the scrapheap in the middle of the room.  They built and tested their catapults on bases so they could move them around for the competitions.

The students worked for three hours and then it was time to test their catapults.

The scoring was keeping track of points or distance and then teams who were first got 1, 2nd got 2, and so forth with the lowest score at the end of the day winning.

The first challenge was The Range War: distance.  Each team had three marbles in balloons.  Each team had their own color.  So each team would shoot for distance all three, and then pick up the two closest ones and leave the furthest on the floor.  After all 6 teams went it was easy to see who was 1st, 2nd, 3rd, all the way to 6th and points were assigned: 1 for 1st, 2 for 2nd, etc.

The second challenge was The Knockout:  each team was aiming marbles in balloons at soda water bottles, 10 feet away.  There was a little bit of water in the bottom, so bottles were hit but not knocked over.  They had all the marbles from all the teams and were trying to shoot at the bottles as many marbles as they could in 1 minute.  

The third challenge was The Accuracy Duel:  all the teams moved their tables in a big circle around a child’s wading pool and they were each shooting their 10 ping pong balls at the target.  There was a  bonus if you got your ball not only into the pool but in the bucket in the middle.

After the points were all totaled and the two top scorers were identified, The Power Puff Girls and Sleeze,  then there was a final round: High Noon.

The first two teams were facing each other with a paper bulls eyed pasted on the table under the catapults.  The 2nd place team chose the distance, the 1st place team fired one shot, and hit the target!  Since the first place team hit the other one on the first shot, no need to move the tables  one foot closer together, and that round was over.

The first place team had won the first and second events and was 4th in the third.  The second place team was first in the 3rd event, and 2nd in the first and 4th in the second.  The third place team came in 4th, then 2nd and 3rd.  The fourth place team came in 6th, 3rd, and 2nd

First place was “Power Puff Girls”  (Hannah Baxter, Evelyn Mertl Kime, Gina Chagnon)

Second place was “Sleeze”  (Yuvraj Rattan, Gaurav Hastir, Zaib Khan)

Third Place was “The No Name Team”  (Casper Newbury, Annabelle Foster, Isa Donovan-DeKlerk)

Fourth Place was “Pythagorean Theorem” (Anya Rajbanshi, Nimra Sheikh, Margaret Dew)

The teams chose their prizes in the order they finished.  The prizes donated were three sets of two tickets to the RedSox (donated by Sam Voolich) for a game in April 2025, and gift cards donated by Charlie’s Kitchen in Harvard Sq. and Dragon Pizza in Davis Sq, and along with Target cards from an anonymous donor.

The other participating teams were “Led Dice” (Sanskar Acharya, Sushant Sharma)

and “2 1/2 Robotics Kids” (Jacob Soltysiak, Sage Milbury, Silas Wickenden) 

and “134/2 Calculator Crusaders 134/2”  (Keshav Bhargo, Raghav Kaushal).

Designers and refiners of the challenge were members of the Somerville Math Fund Board: Fred Bernardin, Sanford Bogage, Adam Foster, Richard Graf, Monica Fernandes, Jay Landers, Dan Oshima, Erica Voolich, Susan Weiss.  Amy Weiss designed the teeshirt and Monica designed the sponsor flyer; and Susan and Sanford designed the student recruiting and registration materials, and Sanford managed registration for this event.  For general pictures from the event check out this link.

Michael Morgan (Math Team) and Patricia Murphy-Sheehy (Head of Math Department) at Somerville High helped with suggestions and distribution help of registration materials.  The math teachers at Somerville High School, recruited student teams.  Bill Trudell videoed the event for Somerville Cable EdTV Channel 15.  Enjoy the video of the event uploaded to YouTube produced by Joe Constantine by EdTV for Somerville.

Again Tufts University was our wonderful host donating their event space for a Sunday event. This was our 19th Scrapheap Showdown and Tufts has been our host for all of these events.  

Thanks to our generous sponsors, this activity was both a fund raiser for a scholarship and three teacher grants, provided prizes for the students and allowed the students to participate without paying any registration fee as students did in the earlier years.  We offered different levels of sponsorship for the event.  

Thanks to all of our wonderful donors whose donations will make first years of three of our renewable scholarships available next spring and four teacher grants in January.

Gold Level (one year of a college scholarship): East Cambridge Savings Bank, Jasper J. Lawson, PhD. & Associates, and Tufts University.

Silver Level (one teacher grant): Jay & Jasper, Mr. & Mrs. Donald F. McGoldrick, Julie Schneider, and the Winter Hill Bank.

Bronze Level  (supporting Somerville Math Fund work): Midé Technology Corp, a couple of long term anonymous sponsors, and Sam Voolich.

The Somerville Mathematics Fund was chartered in 2000 to celebrate and encourage mathematics achievement in Somerville.  This is our 25th year!  On January 7th, we will be processing teacher grant applications for up to $500 for math classroom materials. In March, we will be processing scholarship applications for our renewable $1500/year math and science scholarships.   For more information or to volunteer or to make a donation, call 617-666-0666, e-mail mathfund@gmail.com, or go to www.somervillemathematicsfund.org.

The link to this post is https://somervillemathematics.blogspot.com/2025/10/scrapheap-showdown-ready-aim-flier.html

Scrapheap Showdown is Coming!

Scrapheap Showdown is Coming ... time to get your teams together.  Get two more friends and register your team.  Choose a crazy name for the team and then all come on October 19th to Breed Memorial Hall on Tufts University at 51 Winthrop St Medford -- a new location last year!

After two years off for the Pandemic, Scrapheap Showdown came back 3 years ago  Here are the videos of  2022's Scrapheap Showdown, Good Vibrations  and  2023's Scrapheap Showdown Marble Mayhem and 2024 2024's Catch My Drift.  These were all produced by Somerville EdTV, Joseph Constantine and videoed by Bill Trudell.

The Somerville Math Fund's annual high school engineering challenge is coming on Sunday October 19th.  It will be held at Breed Memorial Hall, at 51 Winthrop St on Tufts University in Medford.  Sign-in is at noon.  

But you must register before online here before October 3rd. 

Teams of three will arrive to discover what will be their challenge to build this year.  If you're interested in seeing some of the previous years' projects check out to links to the videos above.

To compete you must be a high school student living in Somerville MA. Click here to register.  Somerville high school students are encouraged to register and participate.

Start organizing your team NOW, the registration is due on Friday October 3rd

In the past, the teams not only came up with creative names for their teams, but they also came up with interesting creative solutions to the annual challenges.  We always have great prizes.

Go forth and form your teams of three!

Scrapheap Showdown is Coming ... time to get your teams together.  Get two more friends and register your team.  Choose a crazy name for the team and then all come on October 19th to Tufts U, Breed Memorial Hall, 51 Winthrop Street Medford.

Good Luck!

The link to this post is:  https://somervillemathematics.blogspot.com/2025/09/scrapheap-showdown-is-coming.html

Outstanding Students win Somerville Math Fund Scholarships

By Erica Dakin Voolich

The Somerville Mathematics Fund is pleased to announce the winners of their renewable mathematics scholarships for 2024.  The Math Fund was founded to celebrate and encourage math achievement and these students deserve to be celebrated for their work in math and science while in high school. Thanks to the generosity of many individuals and a few organizations, this year we were able to award a record 13 scholarships, totaling $78,000 over four years.

We definitely want to celebrate our scholarship winners for their achievements while meeting the challenges of going to high school. CONGRATULATIONS.  Here is the link to the awards ceremony, the Somerville Math Fund is the first charity to present at about 4 minutes.  https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox?projector=1  

The winners are attending a variety of schools next fall.  Julian Barnaby will attend NYU, Liam Beretsky-Jewell, and Serena Hunter Black will attend U Mass Amherst; Kai Deshima and Mashruf Mahin, Harvard U; Elle Gys, Northeastern U; Aneurin Hullah, McGill U; Gerran Hullah, Rochester Institute of Technology; Alice Hunter, a gap year; Bhavroop Kaur, Worcester Polytechnic Institute; Rafael Ronen, U Mass Lowell; Kaylie Wen, U Southern California; and Serena Wong, Boston U.

In Front: Mashruf Mahin, Elle Gys, Serena Hunter Black, Kaylie Wen, Alice Hunter,  Bhavroop Kaur,  Serena Wong,  Erica Voolich Somerville Math Fund.  In Back:  Liam Beretsky-Jewell, Julian Barnaby,  Aneurin Hullah, Gerran Hullah, Kai Deshima, Rafael Ronen.

A bit of explanation about the scholarship names.  Some scholarships are supported by many donations, some large, some small — but together there is $6000 for each student.  For those students who participated in Scrapheap Showdown this year, we had some of our sponsors who each sponsored one year of a scholarship.  We have some named annual scholarships, two memorial scholarships are for founders of the Somerville Math Fund.  Two of our named scholarships are given by one of our first scholarship winners back in 2001 in the name of his favorite famous mathematician.  One is given in memory of a mother who distinguished herself in WW2 as a nurse and whose grandmother saved for her children’s education.

Their annual scholarships of $1500 are renewable for up to a total of four years as long as they maintain a B average and take mathematics or courses which use mathematics.  

The five memorial scholarships this year are for  Dr. Alice T  Schafer, Lt. Catherine M. Landers, S. Ramanujan, and Michael Voolich.  

One of the scholarships was given in the memory of an outstanding woman mathematician, Dr. Alice T Schafer. Serena Hunter Black was awarded the Alice T. Schafer Memorial Scholarship. 

Serena wrote of the her curiosity and problem solving skills she developed in math and physics classes gave her insights to move from using “common sense” to insights and comprehension.  She spent time in  a local biomedical research lab and saw how the how conditions were an important part of factors and variables that were present in scientific experimentation.

Dr. Schafer (1915 - 2009) was orphaned as an infant and raised by two aunts.  When she went to college at the University of Richmond of Virginia, women students weren’t allowed in the library and she was discouraged from majoring in mathematics.  She won prizes, earned a PhD, taught at colleges (including Wellesley) and among the things she is known for is helping start the Association for Women in Mathematics (1971).  

Less known about Dr. Schafer was her role helping to start the Somerville Mathematics Fund in 2000 -- attending all of the planning meetings and contributing to their work as long as she was able.  She is remembered for her passion and work to insure mathematical opportunities for women.

Since Dr. Schafer was committed to the education and supporting women in mathematics, Serena’a major Biomedical Engineering at U Mass Amherst is a wonderful way to honor Dr. Alice Schafer's memory of encouraging women in the math and sciences. 

The Lt. Catherine M. Landers Memorial Scholarship was awarded to Bhavroop Kaur.  

Bhavroop talks of her math helping her to develop critical thinking skills she used not only in her classes but on the Somerville High School robotics team

When Lt. Landers (1920 - 2012) wanted to go to nursing school (graduating in 1942), her grandmother opened a cedar chest were she had been saving one dollar bills one at a time to help pay for her granddaughter’s education.  Lt Landers won a Bronze Star for her service during WW2, where she ran a field hospital outside Paris; she was about to be shipped to the far East when WW2 ended and so she boarded a transport ship for the USA instead.   Jay Landers and Jasper Lawson donated a scholarship in her memory, honoring her commitment to education.  Bhavroop’s interest in studying Robotics Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute is a wonderful way to honor Lt. Landers' commitment to education.

Our two scholarships in the memory of S. Ramanujan, are a gift from the Jha Family and were awarded to Kaylie Wen who is planning on attending U Southern California and Alice Hunter is planning on taking a gap year before college.  

Both Alice and Kaylie were members of the Math Club.

Alice participated for two years in the architecture mentorship program at the Boston Architectural College and had an internship in the Tufts office of Campus planning. She is interested in focusing on sustainability and accessibility in the engineering aspects of architecture.

Kaylie had two internship experiences at McLean Hospital  and Northeastern University where she developed an appreciation  how neuroscience can connect real life experiences  to help with cognitions and mental well-being.  She sees math as a way to analyze and interpret data to  make informed decisions.   Kaylie is interested in studying neuroscience.

Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887 - 1920) was a mostly self-taught brilliant Indian mathematician who sadly died young.  He discovered his love of mathematics while in high school when he found a book that listed 4000 mathematical theorems without information on they were discovered or developed. So he continued his math work, often on a slate, only recording his concluding theorem on paper when finished, without the details of how he came to the conclusion.  With his humble beginnings and no formal mathematical training, the story of his life and how he finally connected with the well-known mathematicians of his day is detailed the book and movie, The Man Who Knew Infinity. That book inspired the Jha family who gave these scholarships in his honor. Ramanujan’s notebooks and papers have included both previously discovered and new mathematical theorems many in number theory.  These notebooks have continued to provide mathematicians with material to study and try to figure out how Ramanujan discovered these theorems and to see if they were provable.  S. Ramanujan was self taught before he finally connected with the mathematicians in England and worked at the University of Cambridge with the leading mathematicians of  the day.  

The sponsor of this scholarship was inspired by S. Ramanujan as a high school student more than twenty-five years ago. Alice’s applying math to making architecture sustainable and accessible, and Kaylie’s applying math to understanding neuroscience is a way to honor S. Ramanujan’s memory. 

The Michael Voolich Memorial Scholarship was awarded to Elle Gys who is interested in majoring in Mechanical Engineering a Northeastern U.

Michael Voolich (1943 - 2019) was a person who was interested in how everything worked, if Renaissance man was a job offering, Michael would have applied. He learned by asking questions and then he loved telling everyone what he had learned and how seemingly disparate things were related.  He had a career than included teaching many different subjects in local schools, none of which was math but included things as diverse as industrial arts and American History. But, he married a math teacher.  So, when the Somerville Math Fund was being discussed and organized in his living room, of course he joined the founding board.  

He liked to do things for people and of course for the math fund.  His telephone calls and trips to Table Talk Pie Company each year for city-wide Pi Night celebration were a highlight each year. He especially loved helping find things for others to donate for the Scrapheap Showdown each year and his marvelous multiple clamps will still be a necessary part of future Scrapheap challenges to come.  

Michael loved to be able to give and help others in the local community along with his extended family here and abroad. This scholarship was funded by the people who donated in his memory to the Somerville Math Fund.  

Elle was a member of the Math Club, took AP classes along with taking Architecture and Engineering classes where she designed and built projects that used hands-on 3D modeling that mirrored what mechanical engineers did in the real world. 

As a former winning Industrial Arts Teacher, now called Career and Technical Education (CTE), Micheal would have loved knowing that Elle Gys, his scholarship winner, won a prize on the State level in Drafting.

——————-

For years, we have held a high school engineering challenge in October that is both a hands-on problem solving event for the participants but also a fundraiser for scholarships.  https://somervillemathematics.blogspot.com/2024/10/scrapheap-showdown-catch-my-drift.html  

The Scrapheap Showdown last October had four gold sponsors who each sponsored one year of a Somerville Math Fund Scholarship.  The other three years of these scholarships were made possible by many generous donors contributing to the Somerville Math Fund.  

Four of the donors who each paid for one year of four different student scholarship were East Somerville Community Bank, Jasper Lawson PhD & Associates, Julie Schneider, and Tufts U.  The Somerville Math Fund Scholarship, generously sponsored by four sponsors of Scrapheap Showdown were awarded to Julian Barnaby, Kai Deshima, Rafael Ronen, and Serena Wong.

For a number of years, East Cambridge Savings Bank  has sponsored events for the Somerville Math Fund.  This year they are sponsoring the first year of a scholarship awarded to Julian Barnaby who is planning on majoring in Mathematics at NYU.  Julian  was involved in the Calculus Project, the Math Club, was a Teaching Intern in an AP Statistics class and used a dual enrolled in the art of problem solving.  Julian is interested in how math can applied to what seems like unrelated challenges such as traffic.

For a number of years the Jasper Lawson PhD Associates have been a generous sponsor of events for the Somerville Math Fund.  This year they are sponsoring the first year of  a scholarship awarded to Rafael Ronen.

Growing up, Rafael loved to build things.  He was on the Robotics team, won a State award for Architectural Drafting along with winning Scrapheap Showdown.  For years he has enjoyed building and creating and found that the Somerville High School’s CTE program furthered his CAD, design knowledge and improved his prototyping skills and will serve him well in his major in Mechanical Engineering at U Mass Lowell.

For a number of years Julie Schneider has sponsored the first year of a scholarship. This year it was awarded to Serena Wong.

Serena was involved with the Math Club and Robotics Team. She worked as a Fablab Assistant, and on the Sound Crew for Somerville H S events.  She loves the creative problem solving and analysis involved both in computer science and also in the technical design of theater productions. Serena plans on majoring in Data Science at Boston U.

For a number of years Tufts University has sponsored the first year of a scholarship.  This year it was awarded to Kai Deshima.

While in high school, Kai developed an interest in politics leading up to the 2020 US Presidential Election and how it was different from the Japanese Parliamentary system.  Kai  is interested in using mathematical analysis to examine such questions as voter turn out. He spent a summer using English and Japanese resources at Harvard U and Doshisha U in Kyoto,  to research and write a 5000 word independent research paper.  He would like to study Political Science using a mathematical approach  to understand how to help under represented groups in elections.  Kai is planning on attending Harvard U.

———-

The Somerville Mathematics Fund receives donations from many people — many small, medium and larger donations that together make a difference.  If you sent $5, $50, $500 or $5000, for example, you contributed to fund even more scholarships to be awarded.  When we have a total of $6,000 donated, we can give another scholarship.  And last in our list, but definitely not least in any way, are four more scholarships that were made up of gifts many donors.  If you donated, thank you.  Pat yourself on the back.

From the generosity of many comes each of these four whole scholarships which were awarded to Liam Beretsky-Jewell, Aneurin Hullah,  Gerran Hullah, and Mashruf Mahin.

A Somerville Mathematics Fund Scholarship was awarded to Liam Beretsky-Jewell who is planning on majoring in Civil Engineering at U Mass Amherst.

Liam was in the Math club, and participated in Scrapheap Showdown.  He studied and film-documented the willful neglect on the past, present and future of the abandoned Fernald Development Center. He attended the meetings, and did outreach studies on the redesign of the MBTA Bus network. He is interested in how math can model in the real world and design things.  He talked about how the infrastructure allows society to function.  He is interested in public transportation systems and how to make them reliable, useful and efficient. He sees Civil Engineering as his way to help fight for infrastructure and policy tailored to the needs and enjoyment of people and the environment. 

A Somerville Mathematics Fund Scholarship was awarded to Aneurin Hullah  who is planning on majoring in Computer Engineering at McGill University.  

Aneurin was on the Robotics Team and liked mentoring middle schoolers in the FIRST LEGO League.  This was in addition to attaining Eagle Scout and taking Multivariable Calculus at the Harvard Extension.  He loves logic critical thinking used in problem solving, and he loves applying calculus  to real world problems like robotics, electronics and physics.  

A Somerville Mathematics Fund Scholarship was awarded to Gerran Hullah who is planning on majoring in Mechanical Engineering at  Rochester Institute of Technology.

Gerran was on the Robotics Team and helped introduce middle schoolers to robotics.  In addition he rode in the Pan-Mass Challenge.  He sees engineering as giving him a new perspective on how things are made and as a way to contribute to the world   He sees math as critical to the engineer for complex tasks.

A Somerville Mathematics Fund Scholarship was awarded to  Mashruf Mahin who is planning on majoring in Mechanical Engineering at Harvard U.

Mashruf became interested in how things were made first with the Bayblade toy and then running spikes as a member of the track team.  In his CTE classes, he developed technical skills in design, precision and modeling. He hopes to use physics and calculus to advance carbon fiber plating and air-zoom-units to emphasize sustainability and efficiency in creating an enduring environment saving in the elite footwear of the future.

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To watch the awards night at Somerville High School this year, go to  https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox?projector=1

To watch each of these students get their awards, go to about 4 minutes.

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The Somerville Mathematics Fund was chartered in 2000 to celebrate and encourage achievement in mathematics in the city of Somerville, Massachusetts. It May 2011, it was recognized as the outstanding Dollars for Scholars Chapter in New England.  Since its founding in 2000, it has awarded $787,000 in four-year mathematics scholarships to one hundred fifty-six outstanding Somerville students.  

If you would like to make a contribution, you can do so on PayPal, mail a check to 244 Summer St Somerville MA 02143, or go to www.somervillemathematicsfund.org.   Also, this post is part of our blog.  Feel free to check out other articles on the blog to see what we've done over the year.

The link to this post is https://somervillemathematics.blogspot.com/2025/06/outstanding-students-win-somerville.html

Celebrating Pi Day with Math and Pies

by Erica Voolich 

Friday March 14 was Pi Day (3.14). What better excuse is there to have a celebration of math with middle schoolers than π? On Monday before Pi Day, students, teachers, and high school Math Club members celebrated π at Somerville High School by eating pizza while spending an afternoon taking a math contest and then estimating, creating, answering questions, and ending with Table Talk Pies for everyone.

Estimating how far wheel will roll after 1.5 revolutions

The Somerville High School Math Club led by Michael Morgan organized the event. Instead of the usual math contest between Somerville’s middle schools’ math teams for the month of March, they invited the schools to come and have students take a math contest related to pi and circles written by the high schoolers and do some of the pi night activities the Somerville Math Fund has organized in the pre-pandemic past. 

While the eight graders took the contest the seventh did the Pi activities and then the groups switched. While enjoying pizza donated by the Somerville Math Fund, the students from the students from the Healey School, the East Somerville Community School, and the West Somerville Neighborhood school went around to a variety of pi math activities set up in the Lower Cafeteria at the High School. These activities included: predicting bicycle wheel roll distance after one and a half revolutions, a guessing contest, π button design, π facts quiz, finding your birthday in π, drawing a cardioid or nephroid (curves from lines), and predicting circumferences in mm by feel of objects in mystery boxes. 

Making Pi Day Buttons

Even though the Somerville Math Fund sponsored math night event was canceled by the pandemic for three years, two years ago there were Somerville High School Math Club members who commented about remembering doing some of these events when they went over to either the Healey (2019) or the East Somerville (2018) for the Pi Family math night. So for the last two years, the Math Club organized the Pi day celebration and repeated the event this year at the high school for the middle school students. 

Drawing cardioids and nephroids using straight lines
 

Scott Weaver (East), Wil Jacques (Healey) brought students and helped Erica Voolich (Somerville Mathematics Fund) organize the activities for the event. Also bringing students was Alyssa Mackey from West. In addition, Scott Weaver at the East Somerville Community School and Wil Jacques at Healey each organized a day of math/pi activities in all of his classes on Pi Day. All the East and Healey middle school students enjoyed Table Talk Pies to fuel their exploration of Pi and circles. 

Estimating the number of candies in the jar.

Table Talk Pies of Worcester generously supplied small pies for all who came that afternoon. Table Talk has generously supported this Somerville Math Fund event for twenty-one years (2 years off for Covid). When planning the first SMF π Night in 2003; the Math Fund called the Table Talk Pi Company and explained what π day was and Table Talk generously donated large pies for prizes and small pies for everyone. Twenty-one years later, Table Talk Pies is not only still donating to the Somerville Pi night celebration, but also to many more celebrations. This year Table Talk donated about 75,000 pies to schools and organizations celebrating Pi Day. 

Estimating the circumference in MM by feel

A big thank you to all the Math Club volunteers and donors who made this fun, educational event possible. It takes a community to celebrate π day! 

The Somerville Mathematics Fund, was founded in 2000 with the mission to celebrate and encourage mathematics achievement in Somerville, MA. They will award renewable college mathematics scholarships in May and in January they awarded K-12 Teacher Grants. For more information, to make a donation, or to volunteer, visit www.somervillemathematicsfund.org or mathfund@gmail.com or call 617-666-0666.

The link to this post is https://somervillemathematics.blogspot.com/2025/04/celebrating-pi-day-with-math-and-pies.html

Looking for a Great Idea on How to Teach Math? These Teachers Do!

By Erica Voolich

Many teachers have great ideas on how to make their classrooms a better place for their students to learn math.  The teachers’ ideas frequently outrun the budget schools have for supplies and their own ability to subsidize their classroom.  The Somerville Mathematics Fund tries to fill this need through the generosity of their donors with grants up to $500.  

Individual grants were funded by Jeremy Gale, Will Kuhlman, Jasper Lawson PhD Associates, Mr & Mrs Donald McGoldrick, and Winter Hill Bank. The Morris S & Florence Bender Foundation funded a number of grants.  The rest of the grants were funded thanks to the combined generosity of everyone who contributed to the Somerville Math Fund’s annual fundraiser.  The following teachers won grants to encourage and support mathematics achievement in the classrooms of Somerville.

The following teachers won grants to encourage and support mathematics achievement in the classrooms of Somerville.

The Math Fund wants to thank the Morris S & Florence Bender Foundation for generously underwriting the following teacher grants:

• Karen Kolman, Healey School; Jenna DiNovis, East Somerville Community School; Charlotte Ross, Argenziano School;  (District Math Interventionists), Math Intervention Materials across grade levels.

• Katie Starbuck, (Math Coach), Healey School & East Somerville Community School, Math Materials.

• Ava Strezynski, (K), Argenziano School, Math Manipulatives.

• Julie Jones & Lauren McGlashing, Capuano School  (K), Math Night for Capuano School.

• Olivia Johnson, (6th Math) East Somerville Community School, Wipebook Flipcharts.

• Cesar Urrunaga, (7th Math), East Somerville Community School, Scientific Calculators.

• Katherine Adelaide Downs, Healey School (pre-K), Manipulatives and Materials for Number Sense Materials.

• Julie Gallardo, Healey School (3rd SEI-1), Math Workshop and Intervention Materials.

• Ben Garton, Healey School (4th), Chess Sets.

• Roxane Scrima, (K), Kennedy School, Maker Bundle ChompSaw.

Jeremy Gale:

• Johanna Cooney, Brown School, (1st), STEM Materials and Bins.

William Kuhlman:

• Swetha Kalluri, Winter Hill Community Innovation School (Math Interventionist, 1-8), Math Recovery Number Sense.

Jasper Lawson, PhD & Associates: 

• Laura Peters, Somerville High School (STEAM & Robotics), Love to Code Chibi Chips.

Mr & Mrs. Donald McGoldrick:

• Eleanore MacLean, (3rd), Winter Hill Community Innovation School, Math Manipulatives and Materials.

Winter Hill Bank:

• Andrea Palmer, Winter Hill Community Innovation School (K-8 Math Coach), Math Game Centers.

The following teachers’ grants were supported by the generous donors who contributed  to our annual fundraiser.

• Alyssa Mackey, (8th Math & Middle School Instructional Coach), West Somerville Neighborhood School, Wipebooks and calculators.

• April Luna, (6th Math & Science), Winter Hill Community Innovation School, Wipebooks Flipcharts.

• Maureen Mitchell, (3-6 Special Ed Resource Room), Winter Hill Community Innovation School, Math Manipulatives

• Melissa Moore, (7th & 8th Science), Winter Hill Community Innovation School, Math Manipulatives and Calculators

• Julie Scafidi, (7th & 8th Math), Winter Hill Community Innovation School, Wipebooks and Calculators

The Somerville Mathematics Fund was chartered in 2000 to celebrate and encourage achievement in mathematics in the city of Somerville, Massachusetts.  Over twenty-four years, the Somerville Math Fund has awarded $162,158  in teacher grants supporting four hundred ten teachers’ projects in the city of Somerville along with emergency grants to East Somerville teachers after the devastating school fire.

On March 27th, the fund will be seeking applications from students who reside in Somerville for college mathematics scholarships.  Over twenty-three years, the Somerville Math Fund has awarded a total of $709,000 in four-year mathematics scholarships to one hundred forty-three students.  Links to the scholarship application form is available at  www.somervillemathematicsfund.org   For more information, to volunteer or to make a tax-deductible contribution, please contact Erica Voolich (617-666-0666 or mathfund@gmail.com) or go to www.somervillemathematicsfund.org.

The link to blog post is https://somervillemathematics.blogspot.com/2025/01/looking-for-great-idea-on-how-to-teach.html

 

TIme to Get your Teacher Grant Application Together

 Every year the Somerville Mathematics Fund offers teacher grants for K-12 teachers in Somerville who have interesting and exciting ideas to support math learning and enrichment for their students.  The grant is open to teachers in all of the schools in Somerville, both public and parochial.  The grant application is on the Somerville Math Fund website and is due by January 7, 2024.

The maximum amount of any grant is $500 per year.  Previous winners are welcome to apply again as long as they have completed their report on the previous grant.  You can read about some previous year’s grant winners on the Somerville Math Fund blog or by requesting a copy of this year’s annual newsletter which was mailed in early December.

The Somerville Mathematics Fund, was chartered in 2000 to celebrate and encourage achievement in mathematics in the city of Somerville, Massachusetts.  Over twenty-four years, the math fund has awarded  $154,614 in teacher grants in the city of Somerville.  You might want to listen to our  TEDxSomerville talk on the work of the Somerville Math Fund to learn about the various things the math fund is doing.

In early April, the Somerville Math Fund will be seeking applications from students who reside in Somerville for college mathematics scholarships.

The teacher grant application is available on
https://somervillemathematicsfund.org/teacher-grants/

For more information, to volunteer or to make a tax-deductible contribution, please contact Erica (617-666-0666 or mathfund@gmail.com)

The link to blog post is https://somervillemathematics.blogspot.com/2024/12/time-to-get-your-teacher-grant.html