Kerr Math Club began its 2020 school year off to an exciting start as adaptations to the lockdown make the club more open than ever. 

“I think the math club is just a community that just enjoys doing math together and problem-solving together and just a place where people can go to enjoy math” Math Club sponsor and math teacher Stefan San Miguel said.” Then, this year our goal is to basically record videos and post them on how to use math and daily life and how it’s useful and applicable to your future.”

As mentioned before, the Math Club has had to make changes due to this current pandemic, including how meetings are conducted.

“We have meetings like every two weeks.” San Miguel said. “Usually there on Thursday afternoons and at our meetings, we have an agenda, and basically, the beginning of the meeting is just like a warm-up math activity. We do some kind of math puzzle from a different part of mathematics.”

At these meetings, students are encouraged to explore any topic they are passionate about and present how math applies to that topic. 

“Our last meeting, we had a Christian [Aguilar] and Richard [Nguyen] they did a presentation on sine waves and how to model waves and 3D environments and how to use those waves to create like ocean currents and video games,” San Miguel said.  “And then they were showing how they were actually building a video game, and they were using math to design those waves.”

Math club has been spreading the word by providing the school with plenty of tools to prepare themselves for the future. 

“The math club is also responsible for Math Mondays, we have a weekly math challenge that we post every Monday, and the whole schools invited to participate in that challenge,” San Miguel said. “So when I post the Math Mondays, I also post about the upcoming math club meetings … we also do a daily SAT question of the day.”

One of the major obstacles that face any academically focused club is getting people to come out of their comfort zone and joining even though they may not be the best at the subject. 

“A lot of the members of the club are not math geniuses. We just like math. That doesn’t mean you have to be good at math, so I really think a lot of it is just feeling comfortable and relax in the environment you’re in and the people you’re around. So really, I just encourage people to check it out and just see how they feel about the club.”

Giving students not only a very accepting club to better their understanding of math and how it fits into their daily lives but practice on upcoming tests such as the SAT is such a fantastic opportunity to stay sharp during this pandemic.