Next week, scientists, science fans and science communicators will converge on Cheltenham town hall for a week of high-quality science festival. But how much of the programme is given over to the queen of all sciences, Mathematics? Here’s a list of some of the events going on we’d be interested in going to.
You're reading: Posts Tagged: outreach
Maths Week Ireland 2012
As fans of maths, you’ll all be pleased to hear that in Ireland, they’ve basically got the correct attitude to maths, which is to say they dedicate a whole $\frac{1}{52}$ of their time to it. That’s right, they have an annual Maths Week, now in its ninth year, during which events are organised all over the country, the national and local media get involved, and generally try to get everyone talking about maths.
EngageU Recognition of Distinction for Maths Busking
The Maths Busking project recently won a Recognition of Distinction at the EngageU awards. As one of the Maths Busking team, I’d like to shout about this, so here’s a quick interview I had with the project’s director Sara Santos about the award and the project.
What is Maths Busking?
Sara: Maths Busking is a new form of mathematics communication via the medium of street performance.
MAA Mathematical Petting Zoo
A figure 8 knot, a Temari ball with cuboctahedral symmetry and a Klein bottle in the MAA's mathematical petting zoo
The MAA recently displayed a mathematical petting zoo at the USA Science & Engineering Festival, along with a slideshow of pictures from their MAA Found Math collection.
The page about the event doesn’t have any pictures on it but it does have lots of links to the artists and their portfolios. The usual suspects are represented — non-orientable manifolds and polyhedra are in abundance — but there are a couple of unfamiliar objects, and they’re all pleasing to look at and think about.
(via MAA Found Math on Flickr)
IMA YouTube page launched
The Institute of Mathematics and its Applications have launched a YouTube channel.
Maths outreach isn’t easy, compared with science
An article from Reuters talks about the problem with doing maths outreach work:
In the American drive to boost science and math education, it’s science that has all the kid-friendly sizzle: Robots and roller coasters, foaming chemical reactions, marshmallow air cannons.
Math has… well, numbers.
The article outlines several efforts underway to overturn this issue in the US.
Source: Numbers game: America’s struggle to make math fun.
Maths Busking enters university outreach & public engagement competition
Maths Busking has been entered for ‘Engage U’, a “European Competition for Best Innovations in University Outreach and Public Engagement”. A detailed entry makes the case for Maths Busking, including the following description:
Maths Busking aims to show the public the surprising and fascinating side of mathematics through the medium of street performance.
The EngageU competition seeks:
to identify the most innovative outreach and public engagement activities that have been carried out by European Universities. We define outreach and public engagement in the broadest sense to incorporate all forms of interaction with individuals and organisations outside the university… The three winning entries will each receive a 5000 EUR prize for their institution… The three winners will be announced on 23 April 2012.
As well as being a competition, “all entries will be made public on the website, forming part of an online repository of good practice in outreach”.
You are encouraged to vote for entries and no registration is needed to do so.
A full list of entries, rules and further information is available via the EngageU website.