MAMS News Update - March 2010

Coach Macomber's boys basketball team at Matawan Aberdeen Middle School has won the Purple Division title at the Run for the Roses Grammar School Invitational Basketball Tournament for the second year in a row, according to APP. Kashaun Barnes was named MVP of the tournament and Jason Dunne and Joe Piscopo received All-tournament Team, according to the MAMS website. The tournament has been sponsored by the St Rose High School Athletic Club in Belmar since 1979.

MAMS took second place among 18 middle schools vying in the New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania Regional Competition of the Middle School Science Bowl Competition, according to the MAMS website. The MAMS Science Bowl team consisted of 4 eighth grade students: Arsch Raince, Eric Ni, Anthony Nesbit, and Tim Makalino, and one 6th grade student, Aakansha Kumar. The event was held at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory in Plainsboro on 27 February and 5 March, according to PPPL. Organizers  describe the event as follows: During the Jeopardy-like tournament in which all the categories are disciplines of science, competing teams will be quizzed on biology, chemistry, physics, astronomy, earth science, general science, and mathematics. Each team is made up of four students, a student alternate, and a teacher who serves as an adviser and coach.

MAMS science teacher Patricia Hillyer, who took the Science Bowl  team to the above competition, has been selected to participate in the Academies Creating Teacher Scientists (ACTS) program at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, according to the MAMS website.