News

From Equations To Imagination!

When the imagination and math collide, it results in some pretty amazing pieces of art. Rachel Tisdale’s Honors Precalculus class was busy last week learning how to turn trigonomic functions into creative pictures. The instructions were as follows, “Create a picture or design by using trigonometric functions with restricted domains. You may also add other functions (linear, quadratic, cubic, exponential, logarithmic, rational, etc) to add details to the picture. You may draw your picture by hand or use Desmos to create your picture.”

Students took these words and went to work using various functions that included sine, cosine, tangent, cotangent, secant, and cosecant, to create graphs that would eventually form the pictures that they wanted to create.

Students created everything from marsh scenes, to snowmen, to funny faces.

“Students are able to use different parts of their brain,” explained Tisdale. “Projects, by nature, involve synthesizing and analyzing information in a way that does not always happen in a standard instructional setting.  What really makes my teacher's heart happy is seeing the students who may not excel in a traditional math setting step up to really surprise you when given the opportunity to complete a challenge creatively.” 

The students loved the opportunity to get creative as well. “I liked this project,” said 11th grader Evan Seay. “It was a fun way to apply trig functions in the real world.”

“It was a fun way to see God’s creativity through math,” said Ana Tyler.

We enjoyed seeing the incredible innovation of our students as they demonstrated both mathematical understanding and imagination.

The PCA Community: Joining Together For Day Of Prayer

ACSI’s National Day of Prayer was a morning to be remembered. On February 28, students in grades K-12, along with faculty and parents, gathered in the Student Life Center for worship and prayer. Lower School, Middle School, and High School Student Government Association officers helped bring the crowd to their feet as the songs, “Never Be Shaken”, “Light of the World”, “Thank You Lord”, and the Lower School unofficial anthem, “My Jesus”, rang out through the building's speakers.

"It was a great, and humbling experience,” said 10th grader and Upper School SGA member Will Perkins. “It was really driving home that it's never about just you, or even your group, but it's about the church body and about glorifying Christ; not worrying about what people might think." 

“Prayer is such a simple yet profound part of our relationship with the Lord,” said Lower School Principal Tracy Cox. “What a privilege it is knowing that we can talk with God about anything at any time. I loved that we had a special day to focus on prayer as a PCA family. Worshiping together with all of our students and teachers was an incredible way to start the day. I also think it's so special that students were able to spend time throughout the day praying as a class or in their small groups.”

After worship, the lower school was dismissed back to their classrooms where they continued the day with prayer immersed in their Read Across America activities.

Meanwhile, PCA’s own art teacher and author, Nicole Seitz, took the stage and gave a message to the Upper School students about what it means and looks like to pray. “Prayer is personal and powerful,” explained Seitz. “Yet many of us are not quite sure how to pray effectively. In a Christian school when prayer begins each class, we run the risk of becoming immune to the power of prayer. The words can become routine. I wanted to address the unique nature of our school and the challenges we each face in our prayer lives in an effort to begin a frank discussion about how to talk to and listen to God through prayer.”

We are so fortunate to be in a school community where we can worship the Lord daily.