Pizza, then Pi and finally Pies — What More Can You Want on Ultimate Pi Day?

Drawing a nephroid with straight lines

Saturday, March 14 was Pi Day (3.14) -- but not just any π Day, it was Ultimate π Day because it is 2015:  3.14.15!  What better excuse is there to have a celebration of math with middle schoolers than π?     Well over 200 students, parents, teachers, and volunteers  from the high school, PTA and community, celebrated π  at the Healey School by eating pizza for dinner, then spending an evening estimating, creating, collecting data, answering questions, and ending with pies for everyone.

Graphing Diameter vs Circumference

After enjoying pizza donated by the Bickoff family (discounted by White Sport), the students from Healey, who were joined by students from East Somerville Community School (ESCS), and Argenziano schools went around to a wide variety of math activities set up in the gym and cafeteria.

Drawing circles using tangents.

These activities included: bicycle wheel roll, guessing contest, tooth pick drop (Buffon Needle problem), drawing a circle the size of a CD, mystery boxes, π button design, π facts quiz, birthday in π, circle in square vs square in circle, drawing cardioid or nephroid, drawing concentric circles by folding, drawing circles by tangents, drawing circle by right angles, predicting how high of a pour, predicting circumferences and radii, and graphing circumference vs diameter.

Pitching pennies to determine a better target:
a circle in a square or a square in a circle.

The event was planned by Wil Jacques (Healey), Scott Weaver (ESCS), and Erica Voolich (Somerville Mathematics Fund).  Table Talk Pies of Worcester generously supplied small pies for all who came that night and large pies for winners of events.  Table Talk has generously supported this Somerville Math Fund event for twelve years.  Star Market/Shaws (Beacon Street) generously donated most of the juice.

Drawing a cardioid using straight lines.

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.  Eleven years later, Table Talk Pies is not only still donating to the the Somerville Pi night celebration, but to many more celebrations.   In fact, this year Table Talk donated more than 43,000 pies to schools celebrating pi day.

Taking a π facts quiz.

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

Estimating circumference in mm by feel.

The Somerville Mathematics Fund, was founded in 2000 with the mission to celebrate and encourage mathematics achievement in Somerville MA.  In April they will be looking for applications for college mathematics scholarships.  For more information or to make a donation or to volunteer, www.somervillemathematicsfund.org or mathfund@gmail.com or call 617-666-0666.

The link to the page is http://somervillemathematics.blogspot.com/2015/03/pizza-then-pi-and-finally-pies-what.html
©2015, Erica Dakin Voolich

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

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:  John Bullock, Jay Landers & Jasper Lawson, and the Apple Tree Fund.  The following teachers won grants to encourage and support mathematics achievement in the classrooms of Somerville.

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

• Julia Allen & Aileene Martinez-Garced, East Somerville Community School Unidos (1st), Classroom Games and Parent Math Day

• Jason Behrens & Basha Goldstein-Weiss, Winter Hill Community Innovation School (K-2, 3-5 afterschool), Child Created Math Games

• Sally Birth, Next Wave (teacher/counselor), Pre-Algebra Curriculum Materials

• Matthew Burch, West Somerville Neighborhood School (5th), Fraction and Decimal Manipulatives

• Jayne Campos, Argenziano School (1st), Classroom Math Rug

• Frances Carino, Winter Hill Community Innovation School (4th), Math Manipulatives and Think Tank Materials

• Michelle Crawford-Cranford, Healey School (4th), Math Games and Activities

• Susanne Douglas, Healey School (4th), Math Interactive Software

• Donna Driscoll, Argenziano & East Somerville Community School (math coach), Family Math Nights

• Sandra Dumas, Brown School (5th), IXL Software

• Janice Fahey-Flynn, Argenzino School (ESL specialist), Math Manipulatives

• Michael Fitzpatrick, St Catherine’s of Genoa School (1st), Problem Solving Activities

• Jane Gardner, Argenziano School (1st), Classroom Math Rug

• Diana Garity, Argenzino School (4th), Math Manipulatives

• Lindsay Garofalo, East Somerville Community School (1st integrated SEIP), Math Night

• Ben Garton, Healey School (3rd & 4th), Math Games

• Rebecca Grunko, Healey School (ESL specialist), Family Game Breakfast & Math Games

• Tzu-Ting (Ting-Ting) Han, Winter Hill Community Innovation School (1st), Math Games and Think Tank Materials

• Denise Marie Lavey, East Somerville Community School (1st, SEIP), Game Night,

• Mary McGivern, Winter Hill Community Innovation School (inclusion teacher), K-2, 3-5 Math Nights

• Maria Medeiros, Winter Hill Community Innovation School (3rd), Dry Erase Boards & Cuisenaire Rods

• Julie Sahlas, Winter Hill Community Innovation School (3rd), Dry Erase Boards & Cuisenaire Rods

The Math Fund wants to thank  Jay Landers and Jasper Lawson for generously underwriting the following teacher grants:

• Hannah de Souza Rodrigues, Argenziano School (3rd Sheltered English Immersion), Classroom Math Rug

• Kristen Ryan, West Somerville Neighborhood School (SMILE), Pre-K, K, 3rd Grade Construction Project

• Tracy Selig, St. Catherine of Genoa School (2nd), Math Manipulatives

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

• Kathleen Seward, Brown School (principal for instructional leadership team and PTA), Family Math Night

• Amanda Toro, Winter Hill Community Innovation School (SMILE), Math Manipulatives

• Linda Wiegenfeld, East Somerville Community School (4th), 2-4 Math Night

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 fifteen years, the Somerville Math Fund has awarded $79,640 in teacher grants in the city of Somerville.

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

Call for Somerville Teachers to Apply for Math Grants!

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 application is on the Somerville Mathematics Fund website and is due by January 12, 2015.

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 last year’s grant winners on the Somerville Mathematics Blog or by requesting a copy of this year’s annual newsletter to be mailed in early December.

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 fourteen years, the math fund has awarded $69,637 in teacher grants in the city of Somerville.

In early April, the fund will be seeking applications from students who reside in Somerville for college mathematics scholarships.  The application will be available on 

http://somervillemath.dollarsforscholars.org and www.somervillemathematicsfund.org.  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 this post is http://somervillemathematics.blogspot.com/2014/12/call-for-somerville-teachers-to-apply.html
©2014 Erica Dakin Voolich

10th Annual Scrapheap Showdown-- Just Zip it!

On October 26, 8 teams of 3 high school students each from Somerville gathered in Gantcher Gym at Tufts University to compete in the tenth annual Scrapheap Showdown.  Along with the usual interesting “junk” in the center of the room when the students walked in, there were many pieces of paper, some foam core, lots of string and tape.

The students were given their challenge: to build two ziplines, one to move supplies to and the other to move logs back from a logging camp which lies across a river.

The goal was to move as many logs as possible and return with as little as ballast as possible on the shuttle, without anything hitting the river and being destroyed.

The teams worked intensely, building, testing and adjusting their zip lines.

They needed to learn how to maintain enough tension to support the loads, design ways of carrying the loads with not too much friction, in addition to building the supporting towers on each end.

Time was called after 4 hours.

 Now was the time for the competition.
The teams were judged on the length of the ziplines (minimum of 18 feet), the maximum logs they can carry over (rolls of pennies), the  minimum ballast (rolls of pennies) they carry back and if they can have the first zipline automatically trigger the second (a 20% bonus).

Each of the eight ziplines was interesting and sported differences in design — the length of the zipline and the amount of weight carried varied.   The two longest were 29 feet, 7.5 inches and 24 feet, 4 inches.

There were different ways of triggering the return zipline, one by a string pulling out the trigger mid-passage, others by knocking out a brace or tape when the heavier load of logs arrived over the river.

The students' ziplines competed against each other.

Repeating as the team with the highest overall score, was “Back to Basics” (Elliot Rippe, Daniel Portillo, Arjun Singh) — they won last year too.

Second place was the “Rag Tek” (Anoush Khan, Gavin Lawhite, Daniel Strauss).

Third place was “Benny” (Alexander Costa, Ben Stevens).

Fourth place was “Lady Highlanders” (YuYing Chen, Lourdes Jean-Louis, Priscila Ponce).

Fifth place was "Titans"  (Rhedise Bass, Abbe Beke, Kelly Cachimuel).

Sixth place was "Freshmans 3.0" (Cesar Benavides, Alex Colandris, Kevin Fuentes).

The teams could choose their prize in the order they finished.    The prizes donated were: three $100 gift cards (donated by Susan Weiss), four Red Sox tickets (donated by Sam Voolich), three $50 RedBones BBQ gift cards, six  passes Museum of Fine Arts and six passes to the Children’s Museum (donated by PriceWaterHouse), six passes to the Somerville Theater, and three $25 gift certificateds to D2.

The other teams competing were "Destiny" and "Random Team Name Here"

This event was for both fundraising and an intellectual challenge--all funds raised go towards a Somerville Mathematics Fund scholarship for an outstanding Somerville mathematics student.

Fundraiser Anmol Bhargo won a Newbury Comics gift card donated by the Jay Landers.  All competitors and volunteers went home with Scrapheap Showdown tee-shirts donated by Gerald and Debra Bickoff.

Designers & refiners of the challenge were: Chase Duclos-Orsello, Adam Foster, Monica Fernandes, Richard Graf, Jay Landers, Zbigniew Nitecki, Beth Ruskai, Erica Voolich, Michael Voolich, and Susan Weiss.  Stanhope Framers donated the foam core, DSG Communications donated the paper.  Dana Lee and Michael Morgan, teachers at Somerville High School, recruited student teams.  Michael Voolich designed the T-shirts.

Sponsors of the event included Winter Hill Bank, RedBones BBQ , CliftonLarsonAllen LLP, the Bickoff family, Jay & Jasper, and our wonderful host, Tufts University.  Various members of the Board worked on all aspects of organizing the event and worked to make it a success along with community volunteers.

The Somerville Mathematics Fund is an affiliate of Dollars for Scholars.  They were chartered in 2000 to celebrate and encourage mathematics achievement in Somerville.  In January, they will be looking for teacher grant applications; and in April, they will be looking for scholarship applications.   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 Somerville Mathematics Fund is an affiliate of Dollars for Scholars.  They were chartered in 2000 to celebrate and encourage mathematics achievement in Somerville.  In January, they will be looking for teacher grant applications; and in April, they will be looking for scholarship applications.   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 http://somervillemathematics.blogspot.com/2014/10/10th-annual-scrapheap-showdown-just-zip.html

©2014 Erica Dakin Voolich

Scrapheap Showdown is Coming! Time to get your teams together

Each October the Somerville Mathematics Fund sponsors a high school engineering challenge for students from Somerville.

High School students, who live in Somerville, MA, form teams of three competitors ahead of time.  Then on the day of the competition they arrive at Gantcher Gym at Tufts U and discover what this year's challenge will be.  At the end of the afternoon, their machines compete against each other for prizes.  To compete, each team needs to raise $75, and there is an additional prize for the best student fundraiser.

Here are pictures and links from last year's challenge.

Here is the link to download the entry form which is due on 17 October.

If you have questions, email mathfund@gmail.com.

We look forward to seeing all the wonderfully creative students tackle this years challenge.

The link to this page is: http://somervillemathematics.blogspot.com/2014/09/scrapheap-showdown-is-coming-time-to.html
©2014 Erica Dakin Voolich

Outstanding Students win Somerville Math Fund Scholarships

Introducing our winners at the Somerville High School Awards night

The Somerville Mathematics Fund is pleased to announce the winners of their renewable mathematics scholarships for 2014.  The Math Fund was founded to celebrate and encourage math achievement and these young women deserve to be celebrated for their work in math and science while in high school.

Jay Landers, Adrianna Keefe, Jennifer DiPersio, Joytika Bhargo, and Erica Voolich
(photo by Arthur Ingalls, Geskus Photography)

Joytika Bhargo will attend Tufts University, Jennifer DiPersio will attend Stonehill College, and Adrianna Keefe will attend Fitchburg State University.  Their scholarships of $1000 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.

Two of the scholarships are given in memory of two outstanding women, Adrianna Keefe won the Alice T Schafer scholarship and Jennifer DiPersio won the Lt. Catherine M Landers scholarship.

Erica Voolich congratulates Adrianna Keefe on winning the
Dr. Alice T Schafer Scholarship
(photo by Arthur Ingalls, Geskus Photography)

Adrianna Keefe won the Alice T Schafer Scholarship.  She is planning to study mathematics education at Fitchbury State University.  Dr. Schafer (1915 - 1909) 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 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, Adrianna becoming a math teacher is a wonderful way to honor Dr. Schafer's memory.

Jay Landers congratulates Jennifer DiPersio on winning the
Lt. Catherine M Landers Scholarship.
(photo by Arthur Ingalls, Geskus Photography)

Jennifer DiPersio won the Lt. Catherine M Landers Scholarship.  She is planning on majoring in biology and psychology to eventually become a genetic counselor.  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 dollar bills 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.  Jennifer DiPersio's interested in genetic counseling is a wonderful way to honor Lt. Landers' commitment to nursing and education.

Erica Voolich and Jay Landers congratulate
Joytika Bhargo on winning a Somerville
Math Fund scholarship

The Somerville Mathematics Fund, is affiliated with 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 May 2011, it was recognized as the outstanding Dollars for Scholars Chapter in New England.  Since it's founding, it has awarded $216,000 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 annual 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.


©Erica Dakin Voolich 2014
The Link to this page is http://somervillemathematics.blogspot.com/2014/06/outstanding-students-win-somerville.html

Scholarship Opportunity -- applications due on 11 April 2014

The Somerville Mathematics Fund offers scholarships for outstanding high school math and science students who lived in Somerville MA while attending high school.  These scholarships are for $1,000/year renewable for up to 4 years total.

If you are a high school senior OR already in college, you are eligible to apply as a Somerville resident.  Go to our website, Somerville Mathematics Fund applications, and follow the directions.

This year the directions have changed, so please follow the steps.  You cannot win a scholarship without having filled out the Scholarship America online profile.