Many people undervalue math, which is perhaps why April is Mathematics Awareness Month. In fact, math is much more than x + y = z, says Dr. Rejoice Akapame, assistant professor in the 糖心vlog视频鈥檚 School of STEM and School of Educational Studies.
鈥淭his abstract way of thinking about mathematics makes people think that it doesn鈥檛 have relevance to our daily lives, but it does,鈥 she said. 鈥淲e use it to shop for the best food prices in the grocery store, measure ingredients for dinner and figure out the distance, time or cost for travel.
鈥淥n a larger scale we can all relate to right now,鈥 Akapame said, 鈥渕athematics is a foundation for the work done by scientists and epidemiologists, which in turn has been the basis for decisions made by policymakers during the coronavirus pandemic.
鈥淢ath matters.鈥
Making math relevant
To help people recognize how integrated mathematics is in their daily lives, Akapame started a project titled Scratch as a Mathematical Modeling Tool with Dr. Arkady Retik, associate teaching professor in the School of STEM. The project builds on Retik鈥檚 class, K-12 Computing Education, in which UW Bothell students use Scratch 鈥 the world鈥檚 largest and free coding community for children 鈥 to teach local youth the basics of coding.
After hearing about her collegue鈥檚 class, Akapame saw an opportunity to instill the value of mathematics in youth by integrating it with computer programming. 鈥淭he software is a great tool for creating graphs, charts and tables,鈥 Akapame said. 鈥淚nstead of creating games, I thought it would be great to teach children how to use the software to solve mathematical problems that were relevant to their lives.鈥
Retik and Akapame used the spring 2021 class as a case study to gauge the software鈥檚 ability to merge both fields. The students in the course were instructed to come up with lesson plans and then teach local youth at the Shoreline YMCA how to code mathematical problems.
Merging math and coding
First-year student Daniel Tsang was drawn to the class because of the educator role it provided. 鈥淚 started coding relatively late, just a year and a half ago,鈥 he said. 鈥淚 thought the opportunity to pass on the knowledge I have since gained to younger ones would be so fun and could potentially start them on the path earlier than I did.鈥
This aligned perfectly with the goals of the class as one of Retik鈥檚 primary ambitions is to get young children interested in coding and to introduce these types of classes into the K-12 curriculum. 鈥淐oding is important to learn because it teaches you important skills such as critical thinking, problem solving and creativity,鈥 Retik said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 also a skill that is valued in the workforce 鈥 and introducing youth to it is highly important as research shows that career choices are made as early as middle school.鈥
The challenge, however, is that the K-12 curriculum is already packed with subjects, and there is a severe shortage of computer science teachers. 鈥淢ost who get the degree want to go straight into the industry and not into education,鈥 Akapame said. 鈥淪o there are very limited resources.鈥
Using Scratch to combine coding with math can help solve this issue. 鈥淢ath teachers can add this software into their classrooms without needing to develop an entirely new course,鈥 Akapame explained. 鈥淧lus, if math teachers took this on that would alleviate the need to hire computer science faculty. It鈥檚 a great model to scale up existing resources.鈥
Career win-win
Wanting both programming and mathematics to appeal to the youth at the YMCA, the students in the class engineered math problems that were relevant to the children鈥檚 day-to-day lives 鈥 such as finding the fastest route from their home to their favorite restaurant.
鈥淭he kids loved it. They were so excited to solve these cool problems that they forgot they were doing math,鈥 Retik said. 鈥淎nd they were proud of themselves, too. They couldn鈥檛 wait to show their parents what they learned at the end of the day.鈥
In fact, one of the parents even reached out to Retik and Akapame, saying that because of them, her two daughters are now interested in coding. 鈥淚t was great to hear,鈥 Retik said. 鈥淲e need more females in the industry, and getting them interested at this age is a huge win.鈥
The class also turned out to be a huge win for Rosie Shen, junior in the School of STEM. Prior to the class, she had volunteered at the nonprofit Mission Inspired where she taught the programming language Python to kids. 鈥淚 really wanted to grow my teaching skillset, and this class was a great opportunity to work on that,鈥 she said. 鈥淚 gained a lot of experience in the class and because of it actually landed a job as a tutor with iD Tech, a summer computer camp that specializes in providing computer technology education to children.鈥
Mathematics movement
Seeing the success that the project has brought to both the UW Bothell students and local youth, Retik and Akapame hope to advance the project to reach more people.
鈥淚t would be great if more elementary schools started using Scratch in their math classes,鈥 Retik said. 鈥淎nd if the undergraduates could start doing this work outside of the University by starting clubs in their own neighborhoods, we could reach even more youth.鈥
Shen echoed the importance of starting coding early on. 鈥淐omputer science and programming in general are so widespread nowadays and found in pretty much every industry,鈥 she said. 鈥淚 think it鈥檚 important for kids to have programming as a skillset that they can further build on, and that鈥檚 something I hope to see more of in the future.鈥
And while it would be great to get hundreds of students engaged in math and programming, Akapame said that even if they got only one student interested 鈥 that would be a win. 鈥淯sing computers to program mathematical modeling problems opens up the possibilities of what math can do and the types of problems that can be solved,鈥 she said. 鈥淚f even one student realizes that, then that alone is an achievement.
鈥淥verall, I hope that the students learn to appreciate the beauty of mathematics.鈥
