IMA:Mathematics Today

What happens when a mathematician with a passion for teaching maths in exciting ways teams up with a hands-on centre with a mission to stimulate curiosity? The answer is the Mathstastic project that opened at the Centre for LIFE in Newcastle at the start of May. Noel Jackson, LIFE’s Head of Education explained.

“We are a millennium science centre and we have a first-class track record of delivering science workshops to students of all ages. The secret of our success has been two fold. The first is that we have concentrated on providing equipment and expertise that cannot be provided in schools. The second has been to move beyond the simple interactive approach to one which seeks to engage the brain and engage the students emotionally. We refer to this as hands-on, minds-on hearts on.

“As soon as I met up with Steve Humble, I knew we were on the same wave length. We at LIFE wanted to extend our offering to include Maths and Steve was looking for opportunities to demonstrate exciting ways to teach and learn about maths. We decided to focus on KS3 ad the Mathstastic project was born.”

The Mathstastic Project has three parts: a circus of mathematical puzzles, games and activities; a maths show and a maths trail. The circus includes many classic mathematical puzzles such as Sam Loyd’s Greek Cross alongside some modern favourites such as Tantrix and some brand new ideas of our own such as our exploration of Pick’s Theorem. There is an international element to the circus as we drew on centres with mathematical exhibits as far afield as Copenhagen, Stuttgart, Cardiff , Lisbon and Cape Town. There were so many exciting activities that the main problem has been deciding what to leave out.

The show is based on the premise that you need excellent maths to be a spy. For example, a knowledge of topology enables you to escape when tied up, a knowledge of number theory enables you to find out if digital messages have been intercepted and changed and obviously every secret agent should be able to calculate the odds when playing with villains in the casino.

There are two maths trails. The exterior trail was written by Steve and Noel but the interior trail was derived from ideas proposed by Gifted and Talented Year 8 mathematicians in two days of maths workshops earlier in the year. In these sessions, students took part in a maths investigation, explored the outdoor trail and then invented questions of their own based on the exhibition at the Centre for LIFE. Noel and Steve edited these into a single coherent trail.

Through out all three parts of the project, there has been an attempt to achieve a balance between various areas of mathematics. There has also been an attempt to offer activities across a wide range of learning styles. So timing how long it takes to run a fixed distance gives the more active learners plenty to do, particularly when their calculated speed is verified with a speed gun. On the other hand, some students spend most of their time seeking solutions to a single problem.

The initial analysis shows that the circus has quite enough to keep a class of students occupied for an hour and that students would like to have longer than half-an-hour on the trails. When students leave LIFE wanting to do more maths, we know we have hit the right buttons.

Mathstastic ran until June 22nd but has already been such a success that it will be certain to take place again in Summer Term 2009. For more information please contact Noel Jackson on 0191 243 8211.