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Friday, March 11, 2005     Page: 13A

THERE’S MARCH madness in the schools these days, thanks to plenty of
attention devoted to the students who are in the midst of state basketball,
wrestling and swimming playoffs, championships and such.
   
We certainly appreciate their talent, skills, perseverance and hard work.
We certainly enjoy the games and the enthusiasm they bring to the school and
the community.
    But they aren’t alone in their pursuit of excellence and achievement. Just
this week, there has been the annual Science Olympiad at Penn State
Wilkes-Barre in Lehman Township, where students test their knowledge and
skills in biology, earth science, chemistry, physics, and technology.
   
Students from dozens of junior and senior high schools in the region build
propeller-driven planes, delve into the stars, maps and, most spectacularly,
bottle rockets.
   
They go for the gold diagnosing diseases and creating contraptions. Teams
with the highest scores advance to a state competition and then for some, to
the nationals. Good luck teams.
   
It doesn’t stop there. Tomorrow, students throughout the area will take
their SAT tests. Many will be challenged for the first time with a writing
component of the test. We like to think they’ve been preparing by sharpening
their writing skills along with their No. 2 pencils.
   
And of course, we all can mark our calendars with a
   
. Join area students in celebrating Monday, March 14, or more appropriately
3.14, as Pi Day. Even those far removed from high school have some
recollection of Archimedes’ constant. You remember, the ratio of a circle’s
circumference to its diameter?
   
OK, some of us would rather forget and just sharpen the No. 2s. But how can
we not appreciate many of our young people finding a way to get excited about
math?
   
Depending on the school, they may be doing all things pi, from eating pi
(pie), to drinking pi (pina coladas, non-alcoholic of course), and singing and
writing about pi with piphilology. The latter uses mnemonics to help remember
a span of digits. The letters in each word equal the numbers in the sequence,
or “How I wish I could recollect pi easily today!” is 3, 1, 4, 1, 5, 9, 2, 6,
5
   
You know,
   
!
   
March madness, yes, and an education too.