April is Math Awareness Month, and the Math Department has an enormous amount of celebrations taking place. By celebrations, they really mean competitions.

That’s right, there are different competitions for students to compete in this month, with prizes and more to be given away among the students.

Tammy Schrader, Math Department Chair, explains the historical meaning behind Math Awareness month at the school. She says, “Math Awareness Month is a National month set aside to increase appreciation of the beauty, necessity and usefulness of math. National Math Awareness Month was established by President Ronald Reagan in 1986.  As you could guess,that earth shattering news did not hit the front pages of the newspapers of the day.”

She continues, ” However, as soon as our Central Catholic math department found out about it, we began to host a special celebration each year.  This year marks the 22nd annual celebration and the return of math awareness month at Central Catholic after a COVID-19 break.”

She adds, “Our goal is to celebrate the month with some fun and interesting activities and contests that are math related. We cut back on the group and pair activities out of an abundance of caution. Happy Math Awareness Month to all!”

Mickey Bailey is also a teacher in Central’s Math Department, and explains why it’s exciting for him being a teacher. He says, “It’s always exciting to have people think about math since most people don’t like math, they think it’s too hard… Even their parents go, “I always had such a hard time with math,” so at least we get to do some fun things in math so people can see it’s fun stuff to do and not just stuff that they can’t do.”

By encouraging his students to take part, Bailey says laughing, “By Bribing them with a hundred-quiz grade!”

Bailey continues, “Obviously trying to make it exciting and doing something that’s fun. The grade usually helps in the end.”

The contests continue until the last week of April, and awards and prizes should be given out soon, depending on the contest the students wishes to participate in.