ACEMS - Outreach and Education
ACEMS’ outreach activity program in 2019 focused on school and student engagement, the general public, and the mathematical sciences research community. Amongst other things, ACEMS proudly continued its involvement in CSIRO’s STEM Professionals in Schools Program, sponsored a variety of important events for the inaugural ‘Women in Maths Day’ throughout May, and continued to develop the MathsCraft program. In particular, the outreach team have broadened the MathsCraft program beyond workshops and professional development for teachers to a designed in-class companion curriculum to the Australian Curriculum: Mathematics, allowing students and teachers to do mathematics like a research mathematician in their classrooms.
Outreach to schools and their students
MathsCraft: Doing Maths like a Research Mathematician
MathsCraft: Doing Maths like a Research Mathematician is a program that offers students in Years 5-10 the opportunity to engage in authentic mathematical problem-solving, using ideas and processes with which they are already familiar. In the process, the joy of doing mathematics is nurtured and this drives interest in, and provides a purpose for, learning new mathematical knowledge and skills.
Since 2015 the Centre has run many student sessions as well as teacher professional development sessions, including an annual five-day immersive residential workshop that brings together teachers and mathematicians to do maths and discuss pedagogy. Those activities continued in 2019. In addition, we trialled a new pilot MathsCraft Curriculum for teachers to use as a companion to the Australian Curriculum. The plan is to then roll that out in 2020 across Australia. For more information, read the full MathsCraft story.
KPIs
| MathsCraft: | KPI Target | Actual |
|---|---|---|
| Teacher Professional Development events | Reach 150 teachers | Reached 159 teachers |
| MathsCraft sessions | Reach 150 teachers and 450 school students |
Total: Reached 101 teachers and 734 students |
Year 10 Data Science Work Experience at UNSW
The third annual Data Science Work Experience program hosted by ACEMS at UNSW, was held over the period 11-20 November 2019, where 19 enthusiastic Year 10 students (11 male and eight female) from 10 different schools in Sydney participated in an eight-day workshop at UNSW. The students gained valuable work experience on data science under the tutelage of ACEMS Chief Investigators, Robert Kohn and Scott Sisson, and ACEMS team members Yu Yang, Hung Dao, Robert Salomone, Igor Balnozan, Xuhui Fan, Vincent Chin, Fiona Kim, Prosha Rahman, Boris Beranger, Nick Nguyen, and KD Dang. For more information, read the full UNSW Data Camp story.
School visits
ACEMS continues to be heavily involved in a variety of school visits and initiatives to encourage and inform students on ways to learn more about mathematics.
ACEMS’ PhD Student and Research Associate Jacinta Holloway (QUT) ran a series of science and mathematics workshops at schools in the greater Brisbane area to encourage students to enjoy and learn about STEM and consider university.
Additionally, Jacinta co-developed the educational game ‘Sats and Stats’ with ACEMS Masters Student Jack Ford Morgan. The game is about using satellites to learn about land cover and conquer a post-apocalyptic Earth. It is based on concepts from Jacinta’s research about satellite image analysis to monitor forests, and teaches people about probabilities and how to use these technologies and statistics to monitor the environment at global scale. The duo ran the game as an activity during the STEMfest program at Deception Bay State High School. Many other schools in the area came along and students participated in multiple activities. Jack and Jacinta also ran the ‘Sats and Stats’ game for the QUT Women in Maths Day event for high school girls all over Brisbane in 2019.
ACEMS CI Professor Kerrie Mengersen, AI Dr Morgan Grant, and Research Fellow Dr Aminath Shausan visited students at Ironside State School in Brisbane and hosted the ‘Big Bite Mosquito Virality Game’ - an activity for a class to increase their understanding of probability and chance in real world contexts, the usefulness of graphs and scatterplots for modelling, and how dengue disease is spread and prevented. The Game can be used to predict future patterns based on previously collected data, as well as comparing and contrasting the usefulness of group outcomes.
Jack Ford Morgan at STEMfest
Jacinta Holloway talking about ‘Sats and Stats’
Mathematicians in Schools
In 2019, ACEMS members were active in the popular “Mathematicians in Schools” stream of CSIRO’s STEM Professionals in Schools Program. For example:
- ACEMS CI Associate Professor Tim Garoni (Monash) visited Richmond Primary School in Melbourne for a one-hour class on a fortnightly basis from 14 August through to 20 November, working closely with a select group of Grade 5 and 6 students from their extension maths program.
- ACEMS AI Dr Ross McVinish ran a ‘Mathematical Billiards’ activity for 20 Grade 5 and 6 students from Fig Tree Pocket Primary School in Brisbane in March. Then in June he performed the ‘Mathematics of Juggling’ exercise for 10 Grade 5 and 6 students at Goodna Primary School in Ipswich.
School work experience students
Gabby Walker, a Year 10 high school student at the Methodist Ladies’ College in Melbourne, loves mathematics, so much so, that she joined ACEMS AI Alysson Costa at The University of Melbourne node of ACEMS for a work-experience week during her September term break. Gabby worked on a problem aimed at assigning the School of Mathematics and Statistics’ Vacation Scholarship students to their supervisors, using Mixed-Integer Programming in Julia/JuMP. She also went to MAST 10006 Calculus-2 classes and took part in research meetings, impressing the group with her enthusiasm and her ability to understand complex optimisation problems.
Student Engagement Workshops at The University of Melbourne
ACEMS AI Dr Anthony Mays teamed up with Jennifer Palisse, a mathematics teacher and PhD candidate, to deliver a series of mathematical problem-solving workshops about card tricks to more than 180 high school students visiting The University of Melbourne. The workshops and activities included:
- Is This Your Card? – 30 Year 10 students attended from schools Victoria wide
- The ConocoPhillips Science Experience - 30 Year 9 students attended from schools Victoria wide
- Magic Maths Workshop – 30 Year 10 students from Indonesia and Malaysia attended who were participating in the World Mathematics Competition
- Spark Engineering Camp – 60 Year 10 students attended from schools Victoria wide.
Students relished the opportunity to understand the fundamentals of problem-solving using playing card tricks and were given sets of ACEMS playing cards to take home to show off their problem solving with their classmates and friends.
Dr Mays also delighted 30 indigenous students from all parts of Australia, with his ‘Juggling and Dinner Magic Maths’ show at the week-long Residential Indigenous Science Experience (RISE) camp at Trinity College, The University of Melbourne.
‘Is this your card?’
RISE camp, with ACEMS AI Dr Anthony Mays juggling
RISE camp
Other Events for Schools
- Mathematics Roadshow to Girton Secondary College, Bendigo, organised by The University of Melbourne Faculty of Science (with Professor Arun Ram, ACEMS AI Dr Anthony Mays and ACEMS Outreach Officer Dr Anita Ponsaing).
- ACEMS CI Professor Louise Ryan and ACEMS Outreach Officer Dr Anita Ponsaing both provided career advice to Year 12 high school students interested in continuing with mathematics as a career path. Louise encouraged a career in statistics.
- Public Lecture and workshop for ‘Girls Do the Maths Day’, UNSW Women in Maths Ambassador Program. (ACEMS CI Professor Kate Smith-Miles)
- STEM High School Applied Mathematics Seminar. (ACEMS AI Dr Julie Vercelloni)
- STEM High School Presentation and Panel Discussion for Year 12 students at QUT. (ACEMS PhD Student Jacinta Holloway)
- UNSW AMSI ChooseMATHS ran workshops about the ‘Sat and Stats Game’ with ACEMS Masters Student Jack Ford Morgan and ACEMS PhD Student Jacinta Holloway as part of the STEMfest program.
- UoM ran four MathsCraft Student Sessions including eight teachers and 150 students as part of AMSI ChooseMATHS Day (ACEMS Outreach Officer Dr Anita Ponsaing), as well as a mathematics workshop for Year 9 and 10 female high school students. (ACEMS Masters Student Sarah Belet)
- AMSI ChooseMATHS talk to Year 9 high school students. (ACEMS PhD Student Caitlin Gray)
- Young Women in STEM, two-day event for young women from high schools across Adelaide; and also hosted a workshop. (ACEMS AI Dr Mel Humphries)
- School Holiday Program launched a new initiative ‘Micro Mathematicians’ – a three full-day maths activities program attended by 20 Grade 5 and 6 students at The University of Melbourne. (ACEMS AI Dr Anthony Mays, and UoM staff Jennifer Palisse, Sam Povall and Hayley Ellul)
- Hundreds of secondary school age students attended a showcase at the Adelaide Convention Centre, of all University of Adelaide’s Maths Faculty projects, interacting with postgraduate students to gain a better understanding of their work as mathematicians. (ACEMS Students Dennis Liu, Sarah James, Samudra Herath, Fergus Willsmore, Aline Kunnel, Max Wurm, Ashley Dennis-Henderson, Sophie Schiller)
- Promotion of study pathways and career opportunities in data science, statistics and mathematics at the Illawarra Schools Career Expo for Year 10 and 12 students, run jointly with QUT, University of Woollongong and AMSI. (ACEMS AI Dr Matt Mores)
Outreach to the general public
Women in Maths Day
ACEMS put together a video, a spotlight on women in maths poster page, and a podcast in connection to the “Women in Mathematics Day” celebrations. You can read more about those efforts here:
ACEMS Spotlight on Women in Maths Day
The National Science Quiz – A new frontier
ACEMS spent 2019 planning to relaunch the National Science Quiz (NSQ) in 2020 as an online event. The Centre has partnered with the Royal Institution of Australia, who have extensive production, media and distribution expertise, to record a new version of the National Science Quiz and distribute it to a vast digital audience. You can read more about this new collaboration here:
Hedonism - Public Art Exhibition
ACEMS AI Dr Lewis Mitchell participated in two separate exhibitions that formed part of Hedonism – Public Art Exhibition that was on display from May-October 2019, at the Museum of Discovery in Adelaide.
The two concurrent exhibits – ‘Connect For’ and the ‘Hedonometer’ – explored the social connections, language and their effects on the community’s general wellbeing. Social connection affects us, our mental health and our wellbeing. The exhibition explored these themes with a look into supportive workplaces, the benefits of communicating in your own language and the role of social media. The exhibition drew more than 45,000 visitors. For more information of the hedonometer, see the side story here:
Social Media Privacy in the Hands of a Few Friends
Hedonometer exhibit opening
The Hedonometer
Virtual Reef Diver Board Game
This innovative game allows users to experience the beauty and wonder of the Great Barrier Reef while learning about the dangers this national treasure and great natural wonder of the world currently faces, and the solutions data scientists are providing for its defence. The game allows users to work as a team of citizen scientists on a quest to classify the corals, identify the organisms, and help protect the seventh wonder of the natural world. ACEMS CI Professor Kerrie Mengersen and ACEMS Masters Student Jack Ford Morgan at QUT teamed up with Half-Monster Games to deliver and distribute the game to the general public and schools.
Other activities for the general public
- Publisher, Wild Dog Books, asked ACEMS AI Dr Anthony Mays to provide pre-publication feedback and fact-checking of a new book titled ‘All about graphs’, by Lorna Hendry, which is a children's book about interpreting data using graphs.
- ACEMS AI Dr Catherine Leigh launched ‘Approaches to Water Sensitive Urban Design’ as part of the World Science Festival in Brisbane, with Queensland’s Chief Scientist, the book’s editors and contributing authors. The launch attracted more than 150 people including NGO, government and industry representatives, and the general public.
- Involvement in University Open Days: many ACEMS members participated in their Nodes’ Open Day showcasing mathematics and statistics in a fun and engaging way to prospective students. For example, ACEMS AI Dr Anthony Mays and Outreach Officer Dr Anita Ponsaing hosted a variety of informative and entertaining activities including poster displays and juggling activities at The University of Melbourne.
Outreach to the mathematical sciences research community
Women in Maths Day
ACEMS was proud to be a part of the first ever "Women in Mathematics Day" celebrations that took place all over Australia during the month of May. In all, ACEMS helped organise and/or sponsor a total of 13 events across the country. For more information on the various events, read the full story here:
Inaugural Women in Maths Day Celebrations
ACEMS Sydney 2019 Meet and Greet
The ACEMS UNSW Sydney team with ACEMS Partner Investigator Tomasz Bednarz from CSIRO/Data61/UNSW hosted this event at the UNSW EpiCentre (Expanded Perception and Interaction Centre). The night was a great success and provided an opportunity for all local Sydney members and partners to network and meet the wider ACEMS academic community, while exploring cutting edge visualisation and interactive technology. The event was organised by ACEMS UNSW members Hung Dao, Igor Balnozan, Yu Yang and KD Dang.
Careers Networking Events
- SSA NSW Young Statisticians and Data Scientist Networking Event
ACEMS AI Dr Matias Quiroz with the NSW branch of the Statistical Society of Australia’s Boris Beranger (also an ACEMS AI) hosted this fantastic networking event for undergraduate, postgraduate and early career statisticians and data scientists showcasing a great program of speakers from financial, government, academic and consultancy services. The speakers shared stories from their careers and provided valuable insights into their profession. After the talks, a post lecture reception was held where attendees could further network with the speakers, while also connecting with people from many different areas of statistics. - Mathematical Sciences Careers and Networking Event
The event brought together mathematics and statistics students with industry professionals and potential employers to network and connect with each other. The evening included keynote presentations and lightning talks about being a mathematician in industry, and the future of the field. Talks were followed by an hour of networking with the invited speakers and potential employers. A broad range of representatives from many organisations attended including: ACEMS, Boeing, Bank of Queensland, Polymathian, Aurecon, Biarri, Energy Queensland, Jacobi, and Interlate. ACEMS AI Dr Catherine Leigh was the keynote speaker.
Other activities for the mathematical sciences community
- ACEMS UNSW CI Professor Scott Sisson judged UNSW’s hackathon/datathon on the best solutions achieved over a 24-hour period to a given problem, with teams from UNSW and China’s Tsinghao University.
- ACEMS AI Dr Anthony Mays conducted a problem-solving workshop about mathematical card tricks to 30 undergraduate members of the Melbourne University Mathematics Students society (MUMS).
- As part of the Lunchtime Carnival during The University of Melbourne’s mid-year Orientation Week, ACEMS AI Dr Anthony Mays entertained 50 students with his juggling and maths busking show, explaining the mathematics behind it.