DCB Students Shortlisted for a MathsThroughStories Award
Senior School students Audrey W, Jolie S, and Alice F have all been shortlisted for the 2020 Young Mathematical Story Authors (YMSA) Competition Cindy Neuschwander Award in 2020. With 114 entries from 22 schools across 6 countries to judge the competition this year, the field was very competitive.
Held annually since 2019, the Young Mathematical Story Author (YMSA) competition is the world's first annual international competition set up to encourage young mathematics learners (8-15 years old) from around the world to embed their mathematics learning in a meaningful and engaging context through creating their own mathematical story picture book.
Audrey W entered her story book 'What If We Had the Same Birthday?' that explored the mathematical possibilities of people who share the same birth date. Illustrations included clear diagrams and mathematical computations, making the mathematics clear and demonstrating the chances of sharing a birthday.
On her entry, Audrey said "When I found an article about the Birthday paradox, I I immediately wanted to research and create the story about this! Not only this topic was really interesting, it also kind of tells us that some things that seem impossible to happen can actually happen!
Jolie S entered her story book 'Zeus' Birthday’ incorporating Greek mythology to explore math concepts like area and perimeter. It characterized the gods humorously, as well as mathematically considering shapes such as a heart, a raindrop, a crescent, a circle, and a square.
On her entry, Jolie said "The inspiration for this book comes from reading. The characters of my story are from Greek Mythology that I know from reading a fantastic and lovely series of fiction books. I really enjoyed creating this picture book. It helps me understand the idea of areas and perimeters better.”
Alice F entered her story book 'Ramona's Celebration Party' that uses trigonometry to determine the most efficient way to pick up people for a party.
On her entry, Alice said "I like to go out with my friends, but no one wants to drive me there so I always have to carpool with my friends. I never hosted a carpool and I thought it would be cool so I thought about this story”.
Congratulations to Audrey, Jolie, Alice, and Senior School Teacher of Mathematics Jennifer Wilson, on reaching the short list in 2020.
The award is organized by MathsThroughStories.org, an international research-based initiative, which sets out to explore various aspects of integrating stories and literacy in mathematics instruction. The initiative is non-profit and is based in the UK. Next year DCB plans to enter all Junior and Senior School students in the competition to promote cross-curricular learning.
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