As a season ticket holder, Rica Smith, a math teacher at Fayette middle School, was going to be at the Atlanta Falcon’s Monday Night Football game against the New York Jets regardless. However, Smith was selected to be the Atlanta Falcons/Staples Teacher of the Week last week, being honored on the field before the game, receiving two tickets to the game, a Falcons jersey that read, #1 Teacher, and, most importantly, a $1,000 gift card to Staples to purchase supplies for her class and the school.

Smith teaches math to sixth, seventh and eight graders at the school and her project, which had to find a way to combine physical fitness and math, was a relay race called “H20 to Go.” Students teamed up to fill up sponges with water, run 20 yards and transfer the water to buckets. After the race was over, the students worked on measuring the amounts of water. The team that transferred the most water won the race. This is Smith’s third year teaching math. She has taught at Fayette Middle School for six years and previously taught reading and English.

Smith was very excited to be down on the field before the game and she is looking forward to using the gift card to purchase math software for the computers in the classroom as well as a digital camera so that she can capture moments like the relay race. She also plans on sharing the gift card with the school so that other classes get the school supplies they need. As a Falcons fan and season ticket holder for seven years, Smith is always on the lookout for contests to enter her students in. Last year, students in one of her classes won the Atlanta Falcons Fitness Challenge and got to visit the team at training camp.

The Falcons won the game over the Jets and, even though it was a school night, Smith cheered her team on to victory.

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