{"id":10686,"date":"2017-04-04T11:36:42","date_gmt":"2017-04-04T16:36:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/?p=10686"},"modified":"2017-04-05T10:36:43","modified_gmt":"2017-04-05T15:36:43","slug":"skittles-kites-and-the-concept-of-pi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/skittles-kites-and-the-concept-of-pi\/","title":{"rendered":"Skittles, Kites, and the Concept of Pi."},"content":{"rendered":"

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This semester Dr. Treva Lee, Xavier's\u00a0Director for Institutional Compliance and Planning Initiatives, led a class of first-year students in a service-learning project to mentor local youths in the concept of Pi.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, March 11, thirty\u00a0Xavier students joined twenty\u00a0other community volunteers and twenty\u00a0local professionals serving as mentors to teach and mentor around 150 area school kids, as part of\u00a0\u00a0STEM NOLA's STEM Saturday event celebrating Pi Day, at Gernon Brown Recreation Center. Two other Xavier faculty,\u00a0Carroll Diaz (Math) and Floristina Payton-Stewart (Chem), participated\u00a0as instructors as well, along with some of their students.<\/p>\n

The kids were divided into two groups. The first group, kindergarteners through second-graders, learned the concept of Pi through math problems using skittles, construction paper cut-outs, checkers pieces, and building blocks. Skittles were used to graph Pi. Checkers were used for math demonstration of Pi. Construction paper cut-outs were used to make a chain to infinity, meaning each group of kids as they came to the station added their cut outs to the chain to illustrate how Pi never ends. The same concept was used with the building blocks.<\/p>\n

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The second group, third through eighth graders, led kids through\u00a0three activities designed to demonstrate the concept of Pi. The first was\u00a0measurement demonstrations, comparing the ratio of various-sized circles' circumferences to their\u00a0diameter. The result of these measurements is always the same: it's always Pi. Next was a mathematical cryptography (word decoding) and mirroring (more word decoding) competition. Last was a kite building demonstration, designed to teach the concept of tetrahedral molecular geometry.<\/div>\n
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Despite some grumbling about having to meet at Xavier at 7:30 a.m., the students had a great time.<\/div>\n
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One interesting component of the project was the idea of \"tiered mentorship.\" The area professionals served as mentors to the Xavier students, while the Xavier students served as mentors to the youths. As another component of the project, students also completed four hours of volunteering in the STEM NOLA office to learn about the administrative side of the non-profit. Some students were so successful in this capacity that they have been asked to return and may land spots on the payroll.<\/div>\n
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STEM NOLA is an organization founded by New Orleans native, and former Tulane University engineering professor, Dr. Calvin Mackie. Its\u00a0purpose is to expose community members to opportunities in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), and to inspire them to engage in these opportunities. STEM NOLA designs and delivers activities, programs, and events that bring inspiration, motivation, and training to all STEM stakeholders across the city, specifically focusing on underserved communities. Participants gain\u00a0skills in\u00a0communication, collaboration, and critical thinking. STEM NOLA realizes that any effective community-based STEM program must be broad enough to include everyone, yet focused enough to reach people where they are, on their level, and to take\u00a0them to where they need to be in order to compete and succeed in life.<\/div>\n
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Treva A. Lee holds a Ph. D. in Counselor Education from the University of New Orleans. She received her B.S. in Psychology and M.A. in Counseling from Xavier University of Louisiana. In her\u00a0twenty-five-plus years at Xavier, she has served in numerous\u00a0capacities, including as a teacher in the Freshman Seminar program, in which this service-learning project took place.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

-Jeremy Tuman<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This semester Dr. Treva Lee, Xavier's\u00a0Director for Institutional Compliance and Planning Initiatives, led a class of first-year students in a service-learning project to mentor local youths in the concept of Pi. On Saturday, March 11, thirty\u00a0Xavier students joined twenty\u00a0other community volunteers and twenty\u00a0local professionals serving as mentors to teach and mentor around 150 area school ...continue reading \"Skittles, Kites, and the Concept of Pi.\"<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[227,282,290,295],"class_list":{"0":"post-10686","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-service","7":"tag-new-orleans","8":"tag-service-learning","9":"tag-social-justice","10":"tag-stem","11":"h-entry","12":"hentry","13":"h-as-article"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p82MQk-2Mm","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9687,"url":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/conversation-45\/","url_meta":{"origin":10686,"position":0},"title":"Conversation #45: Calvin Mackie on STEM","author":"Bart Everson","date":"April 19, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Download Conversation #45 A conversation with Dr. Calvin Mackie of STEM NOLA on teaching, learning, and service learning. 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Dr. Ramachandran described how methods were instituted that effectively advanced student success in Calculus. The STEP project\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "STEM Gems"","block_context":{"text":"STEM Gems","link":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/topic\/stem\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12895,"url":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/the-xavier-experience-and-the-new-orleans-experience\/","url_meta":{"origin":10686,"position":3},"title":"The Xavier Experience and the New Orleans Experience","author":"Jeremy Tuman","date":"October 18, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"This year Xavier rolls out a new core curriculum designed to give students more options to pursue their interests and to explore the breadth of a liberal arts education. While the overall core curriculum hours have been reduced, several new categories of core classes have given faculty an opportunity to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"New Orleans\"","block_context":{"text":"New Orleans","link":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/tag\/new-orleans\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Xavier-University-Louisiana.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Xavier-University-Louisiana.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Xavier-University-Louisiana.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Xavier-University-Louisiana.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Xavier-University-Louisiana.jpg?resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":16615,"url":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/icymi-dr-tiera-coston-has-a-new-position\/","url_meta":{"origin":10686,"position":4},"title":"ICYMI: Dr. Tiera Coston Has a New Position","author":"Elizabeth Yost Hammer","date":"March 26, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"It is with great CAT+FD pride and almost as much heartache that we lend our support to Dr. Tiera Coston as she joins the A&S Dean's office as the new Assistant Dean for Engagement and Outreach. 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