Niles Township High School East - Reflections Yearbook (Skokie, IL)

Page 26 text:

Jim Iverson explains spherical applications of solid geom¬ etry to A1 Freedman, Bill Swinyard, Mike LeVine, and John Hederick. Larry Messe performs the computation and Rhoda Newman lays out a reference dia¬ gram as Harold Ruttenberg dictates a prob¬ lem in the trigonometry class. 22

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SCIENCE SEMINAR STIMULATES SCIENTIFICALLY GIFTED STUDENT Sputnik, more than any other circumstance in my lifetime, has caused the American people to look critically and — I hope — thoughtfully at our entire educational enterprise. Milton Eisenhower voiced this opinion in an interview in U.S. News in February, 1958. This lagging of the United States behind Russia has caused us to re-examine our educational system, particularly in the fields of mathematics and science. Although students in many secondary schools graduate without courses in these areas, at Niles twenty-seven per cent of the students in the regular curriculum take advantage of the advanced science program. Niles has also pioneered the Science Semi¬ nar, which encourages gifted students to spend ten to fifteen extracurricular hours a week exploring science. This program, developed by Jacob Shapiro, is now directed by Dr. Evelyn Tyner. The funds necessary to supply laboratory facilities and ma¬ terials come from the Berg Foundation, set up by Joe Berg, grandfather of Stanley Berg, a member of the Seminar. Alex Maurizi, Jay Doney, Jim Iverson, and Gail Braverman use Burrette tubes to determine the percentage of solute in a solution of hydrogen chloride. At G. D. Searle Co., where some students are working on electronic projects, Mr. Harrison S. Backus, Seminar staff member and research engineer at G. D. Searle, looks on as Douglas Marshall tunes in an intricate wave he has just generated. Douglas Spengler does a tricky bit of soldering on a vacuum tube volt meter, and (background) Mary Maselli and Ron¬ ald Krischke check the distortion level of an audio generator. Bruce Norgan supplies the mathematics, and Pat French records the data as Kent Krause positions the weight in evaluating a complex pulley system in Accelerated Physics class.

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TWENTY-FIVE PER CENT TAKE ADVANCED MATHEMATICS Although only thirteen per cent of upperclass secondary school students in the United States take mathematics, twenty-five per cent of the upperclassmen at Niles are enrolled in four advanced mathematics courses: Advanced Algebra, Solid Geometry, Trigonometry, and Mathematical Analysis. Such courses enable gifted and interested students to work up to their capacity, laying a firm foundation for advanced study in the universities. In addition, Niles has extended the idea of the Science Seminar to the field of mathematics by inviting sophomores in their second year of the accelerated mathematics program to meet weekly to discuss those mathematical concepts which cannot be taught in the classroom. It is believed that the additional informal discussion groups will help prepare the accelerated student for advanced placement upon entering college. Larry Messe, Charles Kadish, and Karen Sandstrom study the passing of planes through cones at various angles producing circles, hyperbolae, and ellipses at a meet¬ ing of the Math Seminar which is under the direction of Mr. Robert Pruitt.