Teacher Grants Available from The Somerville Mathematics Fund

The Somerville Mathematics Fund is looking for teachers in Somerville who are interested in applying for a mathematics grant. The Fund will be offering grants up to $500 for K - 12 teachers of Somerville students for exciting projects to improve or enrich mathematics instruction in the classroom or in an after-school program. The teacher applicant should be teaching in a public, parochial, or charter school located in Somerville. The postmark application deadline for these grants is 14 January 2012. The application form is available on-line at the Somerville Mathematics Fund's website 

In the past eleven years, The Somerville Mathematics Fund has awarded one hundred four teacher grants totaling $47,921 for wonderful teacher-designed mathematics projects and activities. Past winners are eligible to apply for another grant. 

The Somerville Mathematics Fund, an affiliate of the national scholarship organization Dollars for Scholars, was chartered in 2000 to celebrate and encourage achievement in mathematics in the city of Somerville, Massachusetts. Next April, they will be awarding college scholarships to outstanding mathematics students from Somerville. For more information, to volunteer or to make a much needed tax-deductible contribution, please contact Erica Voolich (617-666-0666, or mathfund@gmail.com)

Explanations for Math "Gender Gap"

AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY NEWS RELEASE

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE ON DECEMBER 12, 2011, 3 p.m. E.S.T.

Major New Study Examines Explanations for Math "Gender Gap"

December 5, 2011

Providence, RI---"I'm too pretty to do math." This slogan appeared on a t-shirt marketed this year to girls.  After outraged objections, the shirt was pulled from stores, but is still available for sale on the internet---and its familiar message continues to echo: It's boys, not girls, who excel in math.  Was the outrage over the shirt knee-jerk political correctness?  Is it perhaps time just to accept the fact that boys are better at math than girls?

Not unless you ignore the data.  A major new study appearing in the January 2012 issue of the Notices of the American Mathematical Society

(http://www.ams.org/notices) marshals a plethora of evidence showing that many of the hypotheses put forth to account for the so-called "gender gap" in mathematics performance fail to hold up.  The article, "Debunking Myths about Gender and Mathematics Performance" by Jonathan Kane and Janet Mertz, takes a scientific, fact-based look at a subject that too often is obscured by prejudice and simplistic explanations.

To start with, Kane and Mertz note that, by several measures, girls actually DO perform as well as boys in mathematics.  In many countries, there is no gender gap in mathematics performance at either the average or very high level.  In other countries, notably the United States, the gap has greatly narrowed in recent decades.  For example, some U.S. test score data show that girls have reached parity with boys in mathematics, even at the high school level, where a significant gap existed forty years ago.  Another piece of evidence is found among U.S. students who are highly gifted in mathematics, namely, those who score700 or higher on the quantitative section of the SAT prior to age 13.  In the 1970s, the ratio of boys to girls in this group was 13:1; today it is 3:1.  Likewise, the percentage of U.S. Ph.D.s in the mathematical sciences awarded to women has risen from 5% to 30% over the past half century.  If biology were destiny and boys had a "math gene" that girls lack, such large differences would not be found over time or between countries.

Nevertheless, other measures continue to show a significant gender gap in mathematics performance.  Various hypotheses have been advanced to explain why this gap occurs.  Kane and Mertz analyzed international data on mathematics performance to test these hypotheses.  One is the "greater male variability hypothesis", famously reiterated in 2005 by Lawrence Summers when he was president of Harvard University.  This hypothesis proposes that variability in intellectual abilities is intrinsically greater among males---hence, in mathematics, boys predominate among those who excel, as well as among those who do poorly.

To test this hypothesis, Kane and Mertz calculated "variance ratios" for dozens of countries from throughout the world.  These ratios compare variability in boys' math performance to variability in girls' math performance.  For example, using test scores from the 2007 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), Kane and Mertz found that the variance ratio for Taiwanese eighth graders was 1.31, indicating that there was quite a bit more variability in math scores among boys than among girls.  However, in Morocco, the ratio was 1.00, indicating the amount of variability observed in the two groups was identical.  In Tunisia, this ratio was 0.91, indicating there was somewhat more variability in math scores among girls than among boys.  In the U.S., this ratio was 1.08, a very small difference from one that cannot explain why there are so few women among the tenured mathematics faculty at the top U.S. research universities.

If the "greater male variability hypothesis" were true, boys’ math scores should show greater variance than girls’ math scores in all countries; one should also not see such big, reproducible differences from country to country.  Therefore, Kane and Mertz conclude that this hypothesis does not hold up.  Kane and Mertz suggest that there are sociocultural factors that differ among countries; some of these factors, such as different educational experiences and patterns of school attendance, lead to country-specific differences in boys’ variances and girls’ variances and, thus, their variance ratios.

Kane and Mertz took the same kind of data-driven approach to examine some additional hypotheses for explaining the gender gap, such as the "single-gender classroom hypothesis" and the "Muslim culture hypothesis", both of which have been proposed in recent years by folks including Steven Levitt of Freakonomics fame.  Again, Kane and Mertz found that the data do not support these hypotheses.  Rather, they observed no consistent relationship between the gender gap and either co-educational schooling or most of the country’s inhabitants being Muslim.

They also examined the "gap due to inequity hypothesis", which proposes that the gender gap in math performance is due to social and cultural inequities between males and females.  To examine this hypothesis, they used an international gender gap index that compares the genders in terms of income, education, health, and political participation.  Relating these indices to math scores, they concluded that math achievement for both boys and girls tends to be higher in countries where gender equity is better.  In addition, in wealthier countries, women's participation and salary in the paid labor force was the main factor linked to higher math scores for students of both genders.  "We found that boys as well as girls tend to do better in math when raised in countries where females have better equality, and that's both new and important," says Kane.  "It makes sense that when women are well educated and earn a good income, the math scores of their children of both genders benefit."

Mertz adds, "Many folks believe gender equity is a win-lose zero-sum game: If females are given more, males end up with less.  Our results indicate that, at least for math achievement, gender equity is a win-win situation."

The article by Kane and Mertz will appear on the Notices web site on December 12, 2011.

Jammin' in the Junkyard -- the 7th annual Scrapheap Showdown

The 7th annual Scrapheap Showdown was a BIG success.  You can read about it here.

The students rose to the challenge.  They didn't know until they arrived that they were going to build musical instruments.  They did a wonderful job.  Their instruments needed to play a diatonic scale and a simple tune in the key of C from a given list of melodies.  They earned more points buy building different kinds of instruments (string, percussion, wind) and by automation the playing of the melody.

Mother Nature cooperated and didn't dump large amounts of snow in Somerville and Medford -- Thank  you!
Tufts University was a wonderful host -- Thank you!
The design team who spent months designing and testing the challenge, and then collected and hauled the junk to Tufts were fabulous -- Thank you!
Our sponsors and donors who made the event and prizes possible were great -- Thank you!

If you'd like to see the pictures from  each of the teams, check out the links below:
Sticks of Doom

Milton's Squad 

Score: & e 0

Thrice Flavored Pi

KPS Hz 07

Go F.A.R.

Yong Kang You's

All is Well

The Llama Lords of Science

SWAG

Panda

General pictures from the event

Implementation of the Common Core

Earlier this month, I attended the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences (CBMS) on Teaching Teachers in the Era of the Common Core.  Parts of the presentations are available on their conference website.

We all need to think about what we can do to help to grow the mathematical learning community that will help our students become the learners we would like them to be.  There were some interesting speakers.  Sybilla Beckmann, Aaron Orsick and others had some wonderful thoughts today about not only growing professional leaning communities pre-k to 20 and above around mathematics learning but growing teachers as professionals.  

It is clear we need to think well-beyond our own classroom and to think about how we can reach out and help others, collaborate with others, learn from others, ... the vision many folks mentioned were thinking well-beyond pre-k to 20 to include math educators and mathematicians.  In some communities, there is already collaboration between different grade levels (or levels of experience) of teachers and/or college professors of mathematics.  Collaboration between teachers and the mathematical community -- each  have something to learn from the other.  Is this something we can be doing here in Somerville?

The Somerville Mathematics Fund is looking for students to compete in the 7th annual Scrapheap Showdown

The Somerville Mathematics fund is repeating its successful creative problem-solving competition.  Head down to the Tufts University Cousens Gym, 161 College Ave. on October 30th, 2010 from 12:00 to 5:30 for a their sixth annual Scrapheap Showdown.  Teams of three students who raise $75 or more in total donations can compete for prizes by solving a creative engineering problem using salvage materials provided the afternoon of the competition.  The competition is open to teams of students who are all residents of Somerville and who have NOT graduated from high school.  Gather your teams now! The preregistration deadline is Thursday, October 20^th.

For more information and registration materials, please visit: http://www.somervillemathematicsfund.org or contact Erica Voolich at voolich@gmail.com

If you are unable to attend, please consider making a tax deductible donation to sponsor the event or to sponsor a team.

The award-winning Somerville Mathematics Fund was chartered in September 2000 to celebrate and encourage achievement in mathematics in the city of Somerville, Massachusetts.  In May 2011, they were named the outstanding Dollars for Scholars chapter in New England. 

The Somerville Mathematics Fund provides renewable mathematics scholarships to Somerville students (private or public school graduates) who have demonstrated outstanding mathematics achievement.  In addition, The Somerville Mathematics Fund offers grants to K-12 teachers of Somerville students for projects to improve or enrich mathematics instruction in the classroom or in after-school programs.  As of June, The Somerville Mathematics Fund has awarded a total of $160,000 in four-year mathematics scholarships to forty-one students and $47,921 in teacher grants to support one hundred four teachers’ projects and fifteen emergency grants to ESCS teachers after the devasting fire.  If you would like to learn more, volunteer, or make a tax deductible contribution please visit www.somervillemathematicsfund.org or write to Erica Voolich at voolich@gmail.com.

SMF goes to the School Committee Meeting

Last Monday, The Somerville Mathematics Fund was honored to be recognized by the Somerville School Committee for their work in Somerville and their winning the Outstanding Dollars for Scholars Chapter in New England for 2011.  Some of the members of the SMF board were able to attend and Paul Bockelman presented us with a framed congratulatory certificate from the whole School Committee.

The Somerville School School Committee devoted the first part of their meeting to recognizing retiring teachers, the Duhamel School Initiative, teachers winning Duhamel grants, and The Somerville Mathematics Fund.   The Duhamel School Initiative received a surprise award: Outstanding School Partner Award from the  Massachusetts Association of School Committees.  The Duhamel Initiative has been doing wonderful work in Somerville for the past 15 years and deserves this recognition.  Congratulations to them!

As the President of the Mathematics Fund, I was able to offer some words to the School Committee.

I took the time to thank the larger community.  The success of The Somerville Mathematics Fund is the result of many people.  Many people donate time and money.  The teachers who apply for a grant give their time to implement their wonderful ideas that we are able to fund.  The teachers also write the letters of recommendation for the scholarship applicants and recruit the high school volunteers for math nights and recruit the Scrapheap teams.  The teachers also organize and run the K-5 math nights and co-plan the middle school math celebrations of math, such as Pi Night.  The students volunteer their time and also study so they are ready to use the scholarships that we're able to award.  Basically, the success of The Somerville Mathematics Fund is a community success.  Thank you.

The Somerville Mathematics Fund Recognizes Outstanding Mathematics Students

Erica Voolich(left) of The Somerville Mathematics Fund, congratulates John Thomas, Maxwell Heath, Bipul Pyakuryal, and Jesse Stern on their winning Somerville Mathematics Fund renewable college Scholarships.

Erica Voolich congratulates Mirta Stantic on her winning a Somerville Mathematics Fund Scholarship.

πππππππππππππππππππππππππππππππππππππππππππππππππππ

The Somerville Mathematics Fund is pleased to announce the winners of their renewable college mathematics scholarships.  The selection committee was impressed with the quality of this year’s applicants and pleased with the generosity of our donors who made it possible to give six scholarships.  At the Somerville High School’s award night Erica Voolich, president of The Somerville Mathematics Fund, commented on the outstanding achievements of Maxwell Heath, Bipul Pyakuryal, Mirta Stantic, Jesse Stern, and John Thomas. Ashleigh Thomas, a student at U Penn, is also a winner of one of the math scholarships.  All have done outstanding work in mathematics and been involved beyond the classroom in science and math events as well as volunteering.  All are planning on pursuing mathematics or a mathematics-related major in college.  The scholarships are renewable for up to four years of college, based on performance.

The Somerville Mathematics Fund, an affiliate of the national scholarship organization Dollars for Scholars, was chartered in 2000 to celebrate and encourage achievement in mathematics in the city of Somerville, Massachusetts. It was recently recognized as the outstanding Dollars for Scholars Chapter in New England.  Since it's founding, it has awarded $160,000 in mathematics scholarships to outstanding Somerville students.  Next fall, The Somerville Mathematics Fund will be seeking applications from teachers who teach in the city of Somerville who would like funding for classroom mathematics activities.  In October, the Math Fund will also be seeking high school students to compete in the seventh Scrapheap Showdown.  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

Somerville Mathematics Fund, a Dollars for Scholars Chapter, Named New England Dollars for Scholars® Chapter of the Year

Somerville, April 28, 2011 – Somerville Mathematics Fund, a Dollars for Scholars Chapter, is pleased to announce that it is the recipient of the 2011 New England Chapter of the Year Award.  The Chapter of the Year Award honors and recognizes Dollars for Scholars^® chapters that have performed outstanding service to their community and that exemplify the commitment of Dollars for Scholars and Scholarship America^® to ensuring all students have access to and complete postsecondary education.

They were chartered in September 2000 to celebrate and encourage achievement in mathematics in the city of Somerville, Massachusetts. They offer renewable mathematics scholarships to students who were residents of Somerville during their high school years without regard to which high school the applicant attended.  They offer grants to K-12 teachers of Somerville students for projects to improve mathematics instruction in the classroom or in after-school programs.   As of January, they have awarded a total of  $138,000 in four-year mathematics scholarships to thirty-five students and $47,921 in teacher grants to support one hundred four teachers’ projects and fifteen emergency grants to ESCS teachers after their devastating fire.  They also run middle school family math nights to celebrate Pi, for example, and the Scrapheap Showdown, a high school engineering challege each October.

As the New England Chapter of the Year, Somerville Mathematics Fund, A Dollars for Scholars Chapter, will receive a $500 scholarship and will be entered into the National Chapter of the Year competition. The chapter selected as the National Chapter of the Year will receive a $1,000 scholarship. 

“We are honored by this recognition.  We couldn’t do what we do in the community of Somerville if it weren’t for our wonderful volunteers and donors.  I want to thank them for their continued support and efforts,”  said the chapter president, Erica Voolich, “this award is really recognition of everyone’s effort to make mathematics accessible and exciting here in Somerville.”

About New England Dollars for Scholars^®

·      Northeast Dollars for Scholars provides leadership and support for 280 chapters throughout the six New England states and the state of New York.

·      Northeast Dollars for Scholars actively promotes the Collegiate Partners Program of Scholarship America.  Almost five hundred colleges and universities agree to use Dollars for Scholars scholarships to reduce student and family loan debt and not adjust need-based institutional gift aid the college has already given to the student.  A number of Collegiate Partners also match chapter awards, effectively doubling the scholarship.  Northeast Dollars for Scholars works with 164 Collegiate Partners throughout the seven-state region.

·      In 2010, Northeast chapters awarded almost $19 million in scholarships to more than 15,000 students.  In 2010, Northeast chapters distributed an average of $75,000 each in college scholarships.

About Scholarship America®

Scholarship America mobilizes support for students getting into and graduating from college. The movement began in 1958 with the first Dollars for Scholars chapters. We became a national organization in 1961—and since then, we've helped more than 1.7 million students follow their dream of getting to college.  Go to www.scholarshipamerica.org

 to learn more.

After-School Math Fun at East Somerville Community School

While I was working with teachers at the Healey School to set up our Pi Night celebration (see the next Blog article), the teachers at the East Somerville Community School at Edgerly were holding their math night organized by Linda Wiegenfeld.

Delia Marshall wrote a wonderful article about the activities for the students and for the parents:
Math Fun at East Somerville School.
Take some time to read about all the wonderful things that are happening there.

Pi Day comes early in Somerville

On Friday, March 13, well over 200 students and their family members and teachers along with high school and community volunteers celebrated Pi Day early. Technically Pi minute would be  March 13 at 1:59 (and to be even more precise, 26 seconds, π = 3.145926...).  Congress even recognized Pi Day in 2009 with our own Congressman Capuano voting 

“yes” to encourage the celebration of this important mathematical holiday http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/19952.html.

Middle school students from the Healey School were joined by students from East Somerville Community School at Cummings and from West Somerville Neighborhood School for an evening in celebration of Pi.  Pi was computed, estimations and predictions were made, π quizzes were taken, π posters were displayed, problems using π were solved, circles and other curves were drawn using lines, π buttons were made, birthdays were found in π’s infinite set of digits, graphs were drawn, and probability data was collected for later use.  Everyone worked on problem solving, estimating, predicting and enjoying π, and dined on pizza and juice.  Prizes of pie and candy, round ones of course, were awarded at the end of an exciting mathematical evening.  Everyone went home at the end of the evening with a small Table Talk Pie.

Businesses and individuals helped to make this possible.  Everyone appreciated Healey School and its principal Jason DeFalco for hosting this event.  The evening was planned by Wil Jacques (Healey School), Theresa MacVicar (ESCS, Cummings), Annette Fiore Bassett (ESCS, Cummings), Scott Weaver (WSNS). and Erica Voolich (Somerville Mathematics Fund).  Over 300 pies were donated by Table Talk Pie Company; Gerald and Debra Bickoff donated the pizza supplied at a discount by White Sport; Star Market (Beacon Street) donated a gift card used to buy juice.  The Somerville Mathematics Fund was honored to be able to sponsor this exciting, celebratory event with the support and time of the many wonderful individuals in the Somerville Schools and community, as well as, the generous donations.

The Somerville Mathematics Fund, an affiliate of the national scholarship organization Dollars for Scholars, was chartered in 2000 to celebrate and encourage achievement in mathematics in the city of Somerville, Massachusetts.  Currently, The Somerville Mathematics Fund is seeking applications from outstanding students for their renewable college mathematics scholarship. The application form is available at www.somervillemathematicsfund.org.

The Somerville Mathematics Fund Announces Winning Teacher Grants

The Somerville Mathematics Fund, an affiliate of Dollars for Scholars, is pleased to announce the winners of its 2011 Teacher Grants to encourage mathematics achievement in the classrooms in Somerville.  Again, the members of the board were pleased with the quality of the applications this year and with the exciting things that are happening in the Somerville classrooms.  Through the generosity of John Bullock and the Apple Tree Fund, The Somerville Mathematics Fund was able fund a record number of wonderful projects this year.  

The Math Fund wants to thank John Bullock and the Apple Tree Fund for generously underwriting the following teacher grants: 

• Georgia Arvanitis at Winter Hill Community School for  “iXL Software” (3rd)

•Annette Fiore Bassett at Winter Hill Community School for “K-2 and 3-5 Math Nights”

•Yasmina Belatreche at Winter Hill Community School for “Graphing Calculators” (7th & 8th)

•Sally Brith at Next Wave for “Algebra Curriculum Materials” (8th)

•Charlene Buckley at West Somerville Neighborhood School for “Math Closet” (1st & 2nd)

•Catherine Cannan, Patricia Murphy-Sheehy, Lily Ma, Justine Hebert, Jennifer Davis, and Maureen Halpenny at Somerville High School for “Kuta Software”

•Frances Carino at Winter Hill Community School for “Scanner and Math Games” (4th)

•Maureen Cronin at Winter Hill Community School for “Math Book of the Month” (2nd)

•Susanne Douglas at A D Healey School for “K’nex Mathematics Materials” (1st)

•Donna Driscoll & Joan McGinty at West Somerville Neighborhood School for 

“Kindergarten/Preschool Math Center and Games Sharing Library”

•Sandra Dumas at Brown School for “Math Center Materials” (5th)

•Kristin Fraser at Winter Hill Community School for “Scanner” (1st)

•Sandy Hong at Winter Hill Community School for “Algebraic Thinking Manipulatives” (6th - 8th)

•Debra A Hurley at J F Kennedy School for “Marilyn Burns Classroom Math Library” (1st, 2nd)

•Danáe Jacobs at A D Healey School for “Mobile Teaching Center” (7th & 8th, and 5th & 6th after school)

•Jonathan Killeen at Argenziano School for “TI-73 calculators” (7th & 8th)

•Eileen MacDonnell at A D Healey School for “Think-Tanks Problem Solving & Number Sense Materials” (3rd & 4th)

•Theresa MacVicar at East Somerville Community School at Cummings for “Algebra Models” (7th & 8th)

•Kimberly Murphy at West Somerville Neighborhood School for “Family Math Nights for Pre-k -2 and 3-5”

•Charlene O’Neill at Winter Hill Community School for “Scanner and Math Games” (4th)

•Michelle Perry at Winter Hill Community School for “Marilyn Burns Mathematics Library” (3rd and 4-6th)

•Ana Potter and Mary McGivern at Winter Hill Community School for “Scanner” (5th)

•Julie Scafidi at Winter Hill Community School for “Graphing Calculators” (7th & 8th)

•Celia Taylor at A D Healey School for “10th Annual Kindergarten through Second Grade Family Mathematics Night”

•Allison Walton at A D Healey School for “K’nex Mathematics Materials” (1st)

•Linda Wiegenfeld at East Somerville Community School at Edgerly for “Math Night (3rd & 4th) and Math Enrichment Club (2nd-4th)”

•Noelle Yankov at A D Healey School for “Mathematics Manipulatives” (2nd)

The Somerville Mathematics Fund, an affiliate of the national scholarship organization Dollars for Scholars, was chartered in 2000 to celebrate and encourage achievement in mathematics in the city of Somerville, Massachusetts.  Over ten years, the math fund has awarded $47,921 in teacher grants in the city of Someville.

In early April, the fund will be seeking applications from students who reside in Somerville for college mathematics scholarships.  Copies of 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 (666-0666 or mathfund@gmail.com).

The Somerville Mathematics Fund Announces Winning Teacher Grants

The Somerville Mathematics Fund, an affiliate of Dollars for Scholars, is pleased to announce the winners of its 2011 Teacher Grants to encourage mathematics achievement in the classrooms in Somerville.  Again, the members of the board were pleased with the quality of the applications this year and with the exciting things that are happening in the Somerville classrooms.  Through the generosity of John Bullock and the Apple Tree Fund, The Somerville Mathematics Fund was able fund a record number of wonderful projects this year.  

The Math Fund wants to thank John Bullock and the Apple Tree Fund for generously underwriting the following teacher grants: 

• Georgia Arvanitis at Winter Hill Community School for  “iXL Software” (3rd)

•Annette Fiore Bassett at Winter Hill Community School for “K-2 and 3-5 Math Nights”

•Yasmina Belatreche at Winter Hill Community School for “Graphing Calculators” (7th & 8th)

•Sally Brith at Next Wave for “Algebra Curriculum Materials” (8th)

•Charlene Buckley at West Somerville Neighborhood School for “Math Closet” (1st & 2nd)

•Catherine Cannan, Patricia Murphy-Sheehy, Lily Ma, Justine Hebert, Jennifer Davis, and Maureen Halpenny at Somerville High School for “Kuta Software”

•Frances Carino at Winter Hill Community School for “Scanner and Math Games” (4th)

•Maureen Cronin at Winter Hill Community School for “Math Book of the Month” (2nd)

•Susanne Douglas at A D Healey School for “K’nex Mathematics Materials” (1st)

•Donna Driscoll & Joan McGinty at West Somerville Neighborhood School for 

“Kindergarten/Preschool Math Center and Games Sharing Library”

•Sandra Dumas at Brown School for “Math Center Materials” (5th)

•Kristin Fraser at Winter Hill Community School for “Scanner” (1st)

•Sandy Hong at Winter Hill Community School for “Algebraic Thinking Manipulatives” (6th - 8th)

•Debra A Hurley at J F Kennedy School for “Marilyn Burns Classroom Math Library” (1st, 2nd)

•Danáe Jacobs at A D Healey School for “Mobile Teaching Center” (7th & 8th, and 5th & 6th after school)

•Jonathan Killeen at Argenziano School for “TI-73 calculators” (7th & 8th)

•Eileen MacDonnell at A D Healey School for “Think-Tanks Problem Solving & Number Sense Materials” (3rd & 4th)

•Theresa MacVicar at East Somerville Community School at Cummings for “Algebra Models” (7th & 8th)

•Kimberly Murphy at West Somerville Neighborhood School for “Family Math Nights for Pre-k -2 and 3-5”

•Charlene O’Neill at Winter Hill Community School for “Scanner and Math Games” (4th)

•Michelle Perry at Winter Hill Community School for “Marilyn Burns Mathematics Library” (3rd and 4-6th)

•Ana Potter and Mary McGivern at Winter Hill Community School for “Scanner” (5th)

•Julie Scafidi at Winter Hill Community School for “Graphing Calculators” (7th & 8th)

•Celia Taylor at A D Healey School for “10th Annual Kindergarten through Second Grade Family Mathematics Night”

•Allison Walton at A D Healey School for “K’nex Mathematics Materials” (1st)

•Linda Wiegenfeld at East Somerville Community School at Edgerly for “Math Night (3rd & 4th) and Math Enrichment Club (2nd-4th)”

•Noelle Yankov at A D Healey School for “Mathematics Manipulatives” (2nd)

The Somerville Mathematics Fund, an affiliate of the national scholarship organization Dollars for Scholars, was chartered in 2000 to celebrate and encourage achievement in mathematics in the city of Somerville, Massachusetts.  Over ten years, the math fund has awarded $47,921 in teacher grants in the city of Someville.

In early April, the fund will be seeking applications from students who reside in Somerville for college mathematics scholarships.  Copies of 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 (666-0666 or mathfund@gmail.com).