Program Director: Nicholas Sterling, Ph.D.

Contact : (781) 493 - 6345

Email : nsterling@nesacademy.com

Dr. Nicholas Sterling, a Ph.D. in ancient Greek & Roman civilization from Brown University, is a lecturer of Greek and Roman literature at University of Rhode Island and an after-school instructor of chess at Kennedy-Longfellow School in Cambridge, and Math Mania and Stock Market Game with Newton Community Education. Dr. Sterling provides one-on-one chess tutoring and is a Tournament Director at the Waltham Chess Club on Friday evenings.

Teacher: Scott Wilhelm  swilhelm@nesacademy.com Scott Wilhelm earned his Masters of Science in Education in 2007 from Simmons College.  He has been teaching for 12 years.  Driven by the idea that all methods of learning work at least a little, his students do it
all:  they build models.  They draw pictures.  They do calculations. 

They describe things mathematically.  Scott spent the greatest part of his teaching career teaching Math and Science to incarcerated youths in the Boston detention and treatment systems developing lab-based curricula for both traditional and nontraditional learners, but has taught most ages and subjects.

 

Our Programs:

Reading and Sci-Fi Writing (Dr. Nicholas Sterling)

Reading and Sci-Fi Writing (Dr. Nicholas Sterling) Does your child enjoy reading? Is your child a budding author? Is SCI-FI a passion for your child? Are puzzles lots of fun? READING AND SCI-FI WRITING provides your child a chance to review reading skills, hone writing skills, and experience the pleasure of word games. Let your child’s imagination soar through flights of fantasy as he or she practice story-creating in a fun non-competitive environment!

Price: $120 for eight weeks Maximum 16 students per class

Science with Scott

Over a 8 week period, your child will learn basics of force, energy, mass, density, and motion. We will take your child through a series of building projects starting from simple compasses to building toy cars and catapults. While doing that, your child will be analyzing, quantifying, and mathematically describing everything they build and everything their toys build. The program broadly addresses a wide range of Massachusetts Frameworks standards and nicely enriches science program of most schools.

Topics Covered

Compass and straightedge
One of the oldest layout tools in history, students will construct their own safe and accurate compasses out of cardboard and use them to practice drawing circles and examine some mathematical propositions Euclid made some 1400 years ago.

Balloon car
Students will apply basic knowledge of geometry to build paper cars that can be pulled along by the static electricity built up by rubbing balloons on pieces of cloth or hair.

Straws:  rigidity of triangles
Construction exercise designed to show students the special nature of triangles and their use in engineering and mathematics.

Equal arm balance
Students will apply construction techniques and geometric knowledge gained to build their own equal-arm balances which they will then use to explore concepts of mass, volume, density, and buoyancy.

Blind builds
Students will challenge their communication skills by building forms out of blocks or paper cut outs and then attempting to teach each other how to copy them without showing them their forms or looking at what their fellows are doing.

Battleship
Classic game of logic and strategy, students also learn basic graphing skills.

Rubber band-powered car lessons
Introductions to force and energy, students apply building skills developed in earlier classes to build more robust cars that store their own energy.

Levers
Students use one of the oldest known tools to study the relationships between energy, force, and distance.  Students will examine common types of levers and build their own lever-toys.

Trebuchet lab
The weapon that dominated siege warfare throughout the Middle Ages comes back to help students apply what they know about the rigidity of triangles, potential and kinetic energy, leverage, and add to that projectile motion.

NESA Math Adventure ( Dr. Nicholas Sterling)

NESA MATH ADVENTURE is a recreational mathematics program for kids of all ages, designed to inspire them to love doing math. The adventure is all in the imagination! Kids play a role-playing game in which they fantasize a quest to find a lost treasure, nab a bad guy, slay a monster, or solve a mystery. If they do well with their math, they do well in the game, and eventually WIN!!

Price: $120 for eight weeks Maximum 16 students per class

NESA Chess ( Dr. Nicholas Sterling)

Dr. Sterling is committed to helping kids of all ages to learn the ROYAL GAME of chess in an enthusiastic, fun environment. The modern game of chess has existed for over five centuries, and older forms of the game date even earlier. Chess has been shown to help kids to sharpen and focus their intellectual acuity, learn to concentrate better, learn to make smarter decisions, and do better in school. Our chess courses are designed to help your chess player, whether beginner, intermediate, or advanced, to enjoy this mentally stimulating game and learn to play it better.

NESA Chess is a program of instruction in the Royal Game for kids of all ages. It is divided into three sections. Chess and Food! is for those kids who just want to relax, munch, and have fun. Beginning Chess is for serious students who are just getting started learning the rules and basic strategies, and Advanced Chess is for more adept students who are ready to take their chess to the next level.

Price: $120 for eight weeks Maximum 16 students per class