Just as a carnival comes into town, on May 25 the Wedgwood cafeteria was transformed into a Math Fair. Instead of clowns and rides, tables were strewn with a wide array of mind stimulating fun games. Enthusiastic students showed their parents the new games they had been learning the past month at school. Classmates assembled to play some fun and challenging games. A visiting professor concentrated on a critical move at Kuba with her student.
What was going on tonight? Thursday night Wedgwood School held its annual “Math Night”. It is not math-centric in the traditional sense of exhibits. Rather, the essence of the event was to provide a forum for families and their students to assemble and engage in some mind-tingling games. In these days of high-tech entertainment, the event was a refreshing way to spend an evening with the family.
Math Fair for the Seattle elementary schools is a project co-sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the Department of Mathematics at the UW, and the local store “Math and Stuff”. Further local support for the Wedgwood Math Fair comes from Ms. Gallardo, our teachers and the PTA. The goal of this project is to promote mathematics as a fun activity in which students can share with their families and friends.
For the past four weeks, the UW team, headed by faculty members, Ginger Warfield and Tatiana Toro, trained our students for tonight’s event. Along with eight to ten UW graduate and undergraduate students, they visited Wedgwood school weekly to teach our students how to play a variety of mind-challenging games. The UW team also discussed game-winning strategies and taught students to build complex structures using building sets.
On this night the fair was in full swing. A son tried to teach his parent how to play a complex geometry board game. A father had fun building a Space Needle replica while his pre-kindergartener built a small-wheeled vehicle, both using the Kikko building set. Across at another table, students assembled a structure that resembled a soccer ball, but one that was more complex: a buckyball–aka Buckminsterfullerene–named for the American architect R. Buckminster Fuller, whose geodesic domes had a similar structure to that of the carbon (C60) atom. It is possible using the Zometool building set.
Four classmates were immersed in a game of Blokus, where opponents chose either yellow, red, blue, or green transluscent tiles of varying lengths. The object of this game was to lay your tiles on the board without touching any of your own corners while allowing your opponent to touch any of your sides. Meanwhile preschool siblings engaged themselves with assembling puzzle-like games such as Feathered Frenzy, an Escher-esque puzzle; or Busy Beetles, with interlocking shapes.
For our busy gamemeisters there were healthy snacks of trail mix, milk, and lemonade. All of these games were provided by “Math and Stuff”, whose owners manned a table full of these and other games for those who wished to purchase them. A portion of the evening’s sales would be donated to Wedgwood School in the form of points that may be redeemed at the store. One of the more popular games was Kuba, which is no longer available at “Math and Stuff”. However, they have found a near-identical game, Akiba, which will be available soon at the store.
The event has been made possible thanks to the support of the Department of Mathematics at UW through their NSF VIGRE grant; the UW GK-12 grant; the encouragement of the Wedgwood PTA; Ms. Gallardo; our enthusiastic grades 1-5 students and their teachers. Additional kudos go to Owen Lawrence for once again organizing a successful, and fun-filled Wedgwood school event!
Tags: News & EventsNo Comments
