Math Meet, Pi, Pizza, and finally Pies —A Great Renewed way to Celebrate a Transcendental Number

 by Erica Voolich

Thursday, 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, about 100 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.

Creating a Pi Button: 
How many digits of Pi are here?

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 Bickoff family of the Commercial Cleaning Service, 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.

Creating a cardiod while 
wearing a Pi Shirt... what does it say?

Even though the Somerville Math Fund sponsored math night event was canceled by the pandemic for three years, last year 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 last year the Math Club organized the Pi day celebration and repeated the event this year at the high school for the middle school students.

Scott Weaver (East), Wil Jacques (Healey) brought students and helped Erica Voolich (Somerville Mathematics Fund) organize the activities for the event.  Also bringing students were Alyssa Mackey from West.

Feeling the circles in the mystery box
 and estimating the circumference
in millimeters.

In addition, Scott Weaver at the East Somerville Community School organized a day of math/pi activities in all of his classes on Pi Day. All the East middle school students enjoyed Table Talk Pies to fuel their exploration of Pi and circles. 

Estimating the amount of candy
in each 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 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 73,000 pies to schools and organizations celebrating pi day.

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 for this page is: https://somervillemathematics.blogspot.com/2024/03/math-meet-pi-pizza-and-finally-pies.html

Looking for a 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.  

     East Cambridge Savings Bank, Jeremy Gale, Will Kuhlman, Jasper Lawson PhD Associates, Mr & Mrs Donald McGoldrick, Spring Hill Dental, and Winter Hill Bank each sponsored a teacher's grant.  The rest of the grants were funded thanks to the Morris S & Florence Bender Foundation.  Thank you to our annual donors who make these grants possible.

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:

• Matthew Burch, Argenziano School (Math Instructional Coach K-2), Math Instructional Materials.

• Johanna Cooney, Brown School (1st), Math Enrichment & STEM materials.

• Katherine Adelaide Downs, Healey School (K), Number Sense Materials.

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

• Julie Jones & Lauren McGlashing, Capuano School  (K), Math Night for Capuano and Winter Hill Community Innovation School Schools.

• Diana Garity, Argenziano School (2 SEI Newcomers), Geometry Materials.

• Anna Perham, Healey School (3rd), Math Materials.

• Charlotte Ross, Argenziano School (Math Interventionist), Math Manipulatives.

• Sabrina Soriano, Healey School (5th Math), Math Manipulatives.

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

The Math Fund wants to thank each of the following for generously underwriting a teacher grant:

East Cambridge Savings Bank:

• Diana Quintanilla, East Somerville Community School (K), Math Manipulatives.

Jeremy Gale:

•Swetha Kalluri, Winter Hill Community Innovation School (Math Interventionist, 2-8), Math Games and Puzzles.

William Kuhlman:

• Nicole Alimena, Healey School (5th, SEI-1), Math Station Manipulatives.

• Marie Clevering, Healey School (4th), Math Games & Creation Supplies.

Jasper Lawson, PhD Associates:

• Laura Peters, Somerville High School (STEAM & Robotics), Girls Who Code Club for Middle School

Mr & Mrs. Donald McGoldrick:

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

Spring Hill Dental: 

Filomena Arruda. East Somerville Community School (Pre-K), STEM materials.

Winter Hill Bank:

• Mary Beth Morgan, Winter Hill Community Innovation School (K), Math Games for the Winter Hill and Capuano Schools to share.

The Somerville Mathematics Fund was chartered in 2000 to celebrate and encourage achievement in mathematics in the city of Somerville, Massachusetts.  Over twenty-three years, the Somerville Math Fund has awarded $154,614 in teacher grants supporting three hundred ninety teachers’ projects in the city of Somerville along with emergency grants to East Somerville teachers after the devastating school fire.

On March 26th, 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 $631,000 in four-year mathematics scholarships to one hundred thirty 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).