Mathematics

Current Events

• As has been our tradition, the math department celebrated Pi Day this year. Students participate in various hands-on activities in their math classes to discover new uses for this mathematics quantity. The students send Pi Day cards to their teachers in other departments and they participate in a contest involving digits of Pi. Twenty-one math and math in-class support teachers wore a name tag with his/her mathematician’s name on it. Students were to complete the sheet by placing the teachers’ names next to the correct mathematician. When finished, the students placed their contest sheet in the Pi Box located in the main office. The first student chosen at random from the Pi Box with a correctly filled out the sheet was the winner.
• Ms. Shafer’s and Ms. Froehlich’s classes completed a Direct Variation/Diversity Project. Students had to research five professional athletes from different parts of the world. They also had to calculate their weight on the moon using direct variation and proportions.
• This marking period Ms. Shafer is going to have her students create a circle graph that represents a week in their life. They will have to find the percentage, degree measure, arc length, and area of the sector for each activity.
•  Mrs. Deignan had her Precalculus students do a compound interest project this marking period. Students had to find out the current rates of three banks for CDs, money market and savings accounts.
•  In November the Probability and Statistics class held a Carnival of games that were created by students in the class. Among the attendees were the special education classes.
• On March 19^th, South competed in the NJIT Programming Competition.
• The Computer Club entered a web site in the NJIT Web Development Competition.
• The Computer Club and Computer Programming classes hosted a speaker from NJIT who spoke on computer science careers and a speaker from Monmouth University who talked about cryptography.
•  Mr. Corvo was recently featured in an article regarding alternate route teachers.  

Faculty:

Louise Baratta	John Knodel	Dona Coffey
Art Corvo	Ken Kretsch	Joanne Deignan
Eileen Fallon	Christine Fran	Anne Freiberger
Tara Froehlich	Marie Marcolla	Jennifer Martins, Coordinator
James Pincus	Jennifer Shafer	Randy Thomas

Staff Development:

Course Offerings:

The Mathematics Department offers a variety of courses so that every student becomes mathematically literate, and receives the best mathematics education every year he/she attends Middletown High School South.

Department Philosophy:

The Mathematics Department challenges students to further explore mathematics by providing curricula that:

Department Activities:

Pi Day is celebrated by the staff and students in the math department on March 14 each year. Students participate in hands-on activities in their math classes to discover new uses for this mathematics symbol. Before the day arrives, students hang posters around the school, and make announcements to heighten the anticipation of this event. The students send Pi Day cards to their teachers in other departments.  Each teacher in the mathematics department wears information related to Pi, and the students must find this information to complete the contest application.

Co-curricular Programs:

Students at Middletown South participate in the following mathematics competitions during the school year.

Shore Math League is comprised of twenty-two area high schools. Six meets are held during the school year, and cumulative scores are kept to determine the top schools, top students in the league, and top student from each team.

New Jersey Math League is open to all students taking mathematics classes. It consists of a series of six after-school tests that are held in the Commons. Scores are sent in for the highest five students from each meet. Cumulative scores determine the winning schools from each county and winning schools from each county and winning students from each team.

The Association of Mathematics Teachers of New Jersey sponsors an annual test. This test is a 45 minute, 15 question test. It is open to all honors math students. Awards are given to the top five individual scores and the top five school scores.

The American High School Mathematics Examination is a 75 minute, 25 question test. Forty students take the test each year at Middletown South. They are invited to participate based on their performance in other competitions, and teacher recommendation. Students with their top scores are invited to participate in the American Mathematics Examination.

The calculus classes participate in the Continental Mathematics League. There are four meets during the year with questions that are similar to those given on the Advanced Placement test in calculus. After each meet a published report of the scores for the top six students is sent to all participating schools, and students with a perfect paper receive individual recognition. Being a participant helps our students become familiar with the expectations of the math community outside our own school, and keeps us abreast of the changes that have occurred in mathematics education in the past few years.