math2earth

Many fields in the world of work rely on an understanding of mathematics and sciences
Many decision-making processes in society, politics, economy, ecology, the personal environment etc. require at least a basic understanding of principles in mathematics, also to increase responsible citizenship

Students who are less motivated to learn mathematics are much less likely to become motivated teachers in mathematics (or professional mathematicians), leading to a degradation of the described situation

Aims and objectives

Many interviews and studies show that one of the main reasons that students give as to their lack of motivation in learning mathematics is that “it is too abstract, has no applications, and no usefulness for students and for later life”. We will tackle this situation with two approaches:

Show that mathematics is everywhere, applications of mathematics in the real world. Particularly create modules (some complete modules, some semi-done ones that teachers and students can finish and extend) to be used by teachers and students in school (within the curriculum and in extracurricular activities), and teacher trainers and trainees at colleges and universities.

Show that you can take (mathematically) interesting tasks and “dress them up”, i.e. give them a context that is interesting for students. Again show some complete examples, some semi-done ones, and also show how to open up a problem. Eventually have competition of teachers to create “best” context to a given mathematical problem.