There is one language which is common throughout the world, the roots of which is based on logical reasoning, counting and measurements. Its laws are certain and rules framed on strong foundation and no wonder it is referred to as the ‘Queen of Sciences’. It is mathematics, which occupies this prestigious position and as scientist Galileo has stated, one can read the universe only with the help of maths. God has definitely written the universe with the language of maths whose letters are triangles, cones, cylinders, circles and many more.
Though maths developed from mere counting, calculations and measurements, it has now found its way in myriad fields such as engineering, medicine, economics and so on. To make children understand its applications in various walks of life, Rosary Matriculation School, Santhome, organised a maths fest last week.
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“Government of India has declared 2012 as the ‘National Mathematical Year’ in honour of the Math wizard Srinivasa Ramanujan. So, we decided to organise ‘YMATH 12’ a three-day fest from July 4 to 6 in our school,” said Mary Zacharia, principal.
On July 4, the fest was inaugurated by Dr. Felbin C. Kennedy, Associate professor, Dept. of Mathematics, Stella Maris College. As many as seven schools _ Montford Matriculation School, St. Bedes Higher Secondary School, Holy Angels, Sacred Heart, Church Park, Children Garden School, St. Johns HSS and St. Raphael’s Girls HSS _ in and around Santhome participated in various events.
Class XII students from each school presented a paper on complex numbers. One student from each school spoke on the topic ‘Math in every day life.’ A quiz was conducted for students of Classes IX and X on topics based on their current syllabus.
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The event did not leave out rangoli. Based on the topic ‘Rotational symmetry’ students in groups of five from all the schools (Class VIII – XII) drew colourful geometrical shapes on the ground. Overall winners of the competitions were students from Holy Angels School and the runners up were from St. Bedes. Prizes were distributed by Sivaa Tamilmani, CEO, Chennai, on July 5.
Myriad activities
All the students of Rosary School were involved in activities such as drawing, colouring, kite making and fancy dress on the second day. Children (Classes I to VI) prepared albums. Several mathematical operations such as addition, subtraction, decimal operations, shapes, money transactions and measurements were represented through figures and craft work in the albums. Children had brought to life the day-to-day concepts such as time, days of the week, calendar and various simple games.
Children of Classes III and IV, using seven pieces of tangrams, depicted more than 1,000 shapes such as tree, train, kite, candle, birds, etc. In the fancy dress competitions, children of Classes I to III dressed as gas cylinders, wheels and cell phones spoke about the properties of square, cube and cuboids. Similarly, children of Classes VI and VII spoke about mathematicians such as Aryabhatta, Guass, Euler, Pythagoras and Ramanujam. While Class VIII through drawing and colouring brought out symmetry in nature, children of Class IX constructed three dimensional kites in the Kite Mela.
In the Fashion Fiesta held for Plus Two students, girls walked the ramp in dresses which had different shapes stuck on them. They explained about the way they designed the dress.
Exhibition
On July 6, a mathematics exhibition featuring many interesting mathematical facts and their applications was held. Children of all classes had put up various projects in a huge hall. The projects included how graphs are used in everyday life _ to represent speed of a motorbike, production of crops and statistics. Games based on basic math calculations, math in daily life (right from recharging a cell phone to paying the entry parking fee), fun with calendars, Math in the 17 & 18 Centuries were some of the projects displayed.
The fest involved children of all classes in various projects, thus inculcating interest towards maths among them.