Category: by Pamela L ’20

On Saturday, May 7th, 20 students from the BSGE Middle School Math Club went to compete in the New York Pi5 Math Competition, led by Mr. Mehan. The competition is a publicly held event open to students from grades 6 through 8 in any of the 5 boroughs. This year, the competition was held at The Armory (at 168th Street) in Manhattan.

Students formed four teams of five, working together to solve math problems of varying levels of difficulty to earn points. The more difficult the questions were, the more points those questions were worth. The point values ranged from 100 to 500 points. There was a total of 45 minutes per team to answer as many questions as possible. “The quicker and more accurately you answer, the better the chance you have of advancing in the competition,” said Christie Choi ‘20, who represented BSGE at the event.

After some routine water quality testing, BSGE has recently found a hint of lead in the water pipes of the school. The lead was only found in second floor pipes, and has been specifically located in the water fountain in the yoga room.

“We had some guys come and run some tests and figure out what to do from there,” said the school’s janitor, Darnell Murray Jr. Some may wonder if these tests were run as a result of the water crises in other areas like Flint, Michigan, where high levels of lead were found in the universal drinking water of the city. The lead found in Michigan was a serious health hazard. But BSGE’s test was part of a routine examination. “In our case, it only came back positive in one location [room 214].”

On January 26th, 64 students in BSGE attended the preliminary round of the school geography bee. 11 eighth and 53 seventh graders competed in 7 rounds of assigned questions aloud until there were 10 finalists, who would attend the school finals. The school finalists were determined through those who received 7/7 questions correct on the preliminary round, and the top scores in the tiebreaker held for those who received 6/7 questions correct. 4 eighth graders and 6 seventh graders made it into the finals.

“This is the first year BSGE has participated in the National Geographic Bee,” says Mr. Lakhaney, who held the school competition. The questions included in the bee cover different aspects of geography, ranging from landforms to culture. “The competition was structured very nicely, but the questions could have been improved because they weren’t all the same difficulty and some contestants had more leverage than others,” says Allen W. ‘20, the school winner.