Case Study: Mathstastic workshops at Life Science Centre

Audience group: Primary or Elementary, Lower secondary or Middle school, Upper secondary or High school, Sixth Form or Junior College

Audience interest level: Uninterested, Receptive, Engaged

Topics: Codes and cryptography, magic, number, hands-on

Origins of the Project

The Life Science Centre developed a suite of hands-on workshops to deliver all aspects of the primary science curriculum. It was recognized that similar offer could be developed for Maths.

The first stage was to assess what was offered by other centres in the UK, Europe and beyond. The activities that appeared to be most popular and successful with students were:

• Maths Shows, as exemplified by the show offered by Techniquest in Cardiff.
• Large scale maths puzzles - for example those at Cape Town Science Centre
• Team challenges rather than individual activities

What did not work were exhibits adopting a historical approach and, “games” where students completed ordinary paper calculations to move round a board.

There are two key aspects of successful engagement. The first is the degree of fun inherent in the activity and the hooks to draw in the target audience. The second is the relevance of the maths illustrated. The ideal activity combines both so participants see it as fun and relevant. Most importantly, successful activities have a low threshold so all students feel that they can participate but have a high ceiling so that the most able students benefit appropriately. Some centres wish to demonstrate the beauty of maths as an intellectual construct but this is most likely to appeal to an audience who are already maths literate and well-disposed towards the subject.

Practicalities

The initial Mathstastic offer consisted of a package of a circus of puzzles and games, an hour-long extension activity and a maths show. In the original “0.07 Maths Show” students found how ability in Maths was essential for a successful spy, helping them escape when tied up, enabling them to crack codes and know when their messages had been intercepted and corrupted. Because the Life shows started to use more elaborate stage sets which were difficult to alter, it became increasingly difficult to create the right atmosphere in the theatre. The 0.07 Maths Show has now been replaced with an Astronavigation workshop in our planetarium. We now have well over 30 extension activities but by far the most popular is using modular numbers to complete some impressive card tricks with a deck stacked in Sy Stebbings order.

The initial offer is still available on demand but there are now three times during the year where the offer is as expanded into a whole day. In early November there are sessions for small groups of more able students. These include an introduction to maths trails and an opportunity for teams to develop questions of their own that they think would interest other students of their age. These sessions have the bonus of providing CPD and exemplars of good practice for the staff that accompany the students.

A further extension to Mathstastic has been working with the maths education departments of Newcastle, Durham and Sunderland Universities for the Festival of Maths in early February. Groups of trainee maths teachers are challenged to develop a 25-minute maths extension activity which participating classes visit as a circus over the course of a day. Support for the student teachers is given over the course of Autumn Term as they are encouraged to use their imagination to develop an exciting hands-on way for young people to gain insight into a particular topic. The excitement with which the young people engage with the activities throughout the day is generally a sharp contrast to the trainee teachers’ experiences in school and a powerful advertisement for adopting a hands-on approach to maths teaching.

The last part of the Mathstastic offer is Mathsplosion, an event for GCSE students which Life runs with the AMSP. The schools are recruited and funded by AtHM and extended activities are offered by both Life education staff and external maths consultants.

Evidence and Recommendations

Feedback is collected from all Mathstastic participants including both teachers and pupils and across the board it is overwhelmingly positive. Casual observation shows that the students participate in and enjoy the activities throughout the day and teachers often comment positively on their persistent engagement. Student comments generally focus on the enjoyment although the practical use is also recognized. The only poor feedback we get is from occasional small groups of teenage boys, very often those who have had to be reminded about their behaviour by their teachers.

The feedback from all Mathstatstic activities is positive and schools who participate generally make repeat visits each year. The main problem is getting maths teachers to come the first time. We understand that Maths teachers are necessarily self-sufficient and the idea of visiting a science centre to enhance maths is not self-evident.

Cost is a barrier for some schools. The Life Science Centre is not funded by the government, local authority nor any external agency. As a consequence, the cost of activities and their delivery have to be covered. However, finding the time to attract a grant sufficient to fund a five year programme for Festival of Maths would take up more time than the Life team have available.

With regard to the Festival of Maths, perhaps the most telling evidence is that the current maths lead in the education department at Sunderland was a participant in the very first festival when she was a PGCE student at Newcastle. She ascribes her success in getting students to engage with maths to a teaching style based on the lessons learnt at the Festival.

There is still a general reluctance among science centres in the UK, Europe and America to engage in mathematics. There is sometimes concern that the public will find maths uninteresting and find topics such as dinosaurs, robots and space much easier to sell. As a result, the small number of specialist maths museums (Mathematikum, Geisen; MoMaCa, Barcelona and MoMath, New York) have set up their own network with conferences alternating annually between Europe (Matrix) and New York (MOVES). This is a shame as Matrix/MOVES provide focus for an enormous amount of mathematical expertise whereas the science centres have a well-established network of centres with large audiences and staff experienced in hands-on learning. Working together more effectively would create activities that were so much greater than the sum of their parts.

More information

Life’s Education programme website: life.org.uk/education

Twitter account: twitter.com/scienceatlife