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.