Schools

MEMS February Highlights

Students participated in a mathematical beauty pageant, sponsored a Super Bowl drive, sold candy grams and donated money to the SPCA.

The following highlights are submitted by Irene Policastro, the Secretary to Superintendent John J. Marciante of the Manalapan-Englishtown Regional School District.

Congratulations to the Math Counts Mathletes. The MEMS Math Counts team brought the 6 th place trophy home for MEMS from their regional competition. Members of the team are Kathryn Jiang, Philip Luo, Vladyslav Nazarchuk, Amanda Lashnick, Josh Reich, Rahul Singh, Spencer Volk, and Tiffany Yuen. There were 31 teams and 206 students competing from Monmouth, Middlesex and Union counties. A special congratulations to Kathryn Jiang, who placed 7 th out of 206 and competed in the countdown round where she finished in 6th place.

MEMS Student Council sponsored a Super Bowl Food Drive. A football display was created in the MEMS main lobby. Students were asked to donate food items to the team that they thought would win the Super Bowl. The Giants won the food drive contest. Over 1000 food items were donated to the Samaritan Center.

In the month of February, the Student Council sold Valentine Candy Grams. Over $300 was raised for charity. The Student Council and National Junior Honor Society also hosted a Valentine's Dance. Not only was the dance a fun event for the students, but ticket and snack sales raised $1300 for charity.
The following highlights are submitted by Irene Policastro, the Secretary to Superintendent John J. Marciante of the Manalapan-Englishtown Regional School District.

On February 1st students in Ms. Schiano's and Mrs. Ryan's Italian class made masks to celebrate Carnevale in Italy. Students learned about the famous city of Venice and how they celebrate Carnevale. Students used imported silk masks from Italy and decorated them with glitter, feathers, ribbon and jewels. Students really enjoyed the day and it was a wonderful way to end their studies in Italian.

Several of Mrs. Harris’ (Omega Community) Language Arts students recently submitted entries for Scholastic’s “Dystopian Writing Contest” in conjunction with the March 23rd movie release of The Hunger Games based on the book by Suzanne Collins. Students were asked to “write a story about a future gone horribly wrong.” They were asked to include what their dystopian world looked like, when their society developed, how its laws affected the people and where their main character in. The Grand Prize winner will receive an all-expenses paid trip for two to the premiere of “The Hunger Games” in Los Angeles. Winners will be notified on or about March 5, 2012.

On February 23, 2012, the National Junior Honor Society held a charity basketball game where the teachers took on the 8th grade girls and boys basketball teams. The very exciting game tied in the last quarter and went into overtime. The students beat the teachers 64-63. All proceeds were donated to local charities, totally $960.

"MATHEMATICAL BEAUTY PAGEANT"
Students in Mrs. Lozada's and Mrs. Rowland's math class learned about the mysterious Golden Ratio (Phi) and its fascinating connections to art, beauty, architecture, and nature. Curious to learn whether the Golden Ratio was present among themselves, the students performed a series of measurements given to them by Mrs. Lozada.

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They then wrote these measurements as ratios and converted them to decimals. Mrs. Rowland noted how well the students seemed to understand what they were doing and why they were doing it. "The Golden Ratio is not as hard to figure out as you would think and it's fun." (Mrs. Rowland) In the end, it was frenzied search to see who was closest to the magic number- Phi!

"It was cool to see how all the measurements combined to make a number that was close to the Golden Ratio" Danna Meier. "Discovering Phi was a great experience." (Cora Solomon Riise.) "It was very interesting using a series of measurements to see who had the Golden Ratio" Dominick DeFendis. Students were surprised to see that absolute value, comparing decimals, converting numbers from one form to another, and measurement all combined to serve a real and entertaining purpose! In the end, our winners were only a few thousandths away from the Golden Ratio! Special touches, such as costumes worn by the teachers, and sashes made by Mrs. Lozada all made the activity more exciting. All students, whether walking away with the sash or not, gained an appreciation of why the skills of seventh grade math are useful.

Sigma Community held a Pet Fund Drive to raise money for the Monmouth County SPCA. Students nominated their favorite pet and votes were cast by student donations for the pet they supported. Approximately $400 was raised and donated to the SPCA.

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