Shawano Leader: An educational celebration Friday at Gresham Community School was done by the numbers, with certificates and medals — and pizza.
Gresham had plenty to celebrate, as the small school beat out larger competitors like Stevens Point, D.C. Everest and Wisconsin Dells to be the top-ranked Wisconsin school in the Matific contest, an online program that makes solving math problems fun. If that wasn’t enough, the local school was ranked 15th in the nation out of 3,000 participating schools.
Sean Tiernan, a Matific representative from Greenville, Wisconsin, noted that Matific got its start eight years ago in Australia and Israel but didn’t become prevalent in the United States until three years ago. The program is designed to help bridge the historic gap between students learning math, he said.
“We’re in 47 different countries, and the program is in 30 different languages. It’s pretty interesting,” Tiernan said. “It’s to get kids to have a love for math,” as well as introduce students to Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, or STEM, programs.