PUZZLE DAY – What comes to your mind when those words come to your head? A day of math class in the library? Perplexers? Rubix cubes?
They are all correct! On Puzzle Day, which was held on April 17th, students of all grades went to the library during their math classes to try and figure out the answers to the puzzles that were spread throughout the room. Tables were set up everywhere and each had a minimum of four puzzles to complete. Armed with pencils, a completion worksheet, and their brains, North Providence High School students were let loose on the various stations that were set up.
When a student successfully completed a puzzle, they would have the volunteer at the station sign off on the name of the puzzle on a worksheet and then continue to another puzzle. The goal was to complete as many puzzles as possible with a partner, in order to get a prize.
Puzzle Day is an annual event at NPHS that offers students a “nice culminating activity that displays problem solving strategies”, says math department chair Ms. Branco. Preparation had been completed by the NPHS Math Club headed by Mrs. Maria Branco. They raffled off prizes to the various Math Club volunteers helping to run the event throughout the day, gifting yo-yo’s and Math Club t-shirts.
Puzzles included geometric puzzles, in which a ball had to go through a maze, or shapes had to fit in a certain order, logic puzzles, in which something had to be explained, and mathematical puzzles, which heavily involved numbers. A new addition to Puzzle Day was the 2048 game, a quickly addicting game of adding multiples of two, that was offered at the front of the library on the Math Department’s laptops.
At the conclusion of Puzzle Day, students were all reminded of the fun completing puzzles can bring. Many students found afterwards that they had used their brains without even realizing it. That is the magic of puzzles.
There were winners, of course, for the following categories:
Michaela Fornaro
Vina Shannon
Nicole Lussier
Andrea Matarese
Laura Barilari
Paige Gaboury
Heather Thurber
Christian Sermos
Kevin Yepes
Emily Alcantara
Lauren Chidiac
Matthew Weidinger
Mohamed Diaby
By: Michele Winter & Jessica Martineau
