by M4S at School has ramped up our partnerships with schools, helping teachers and students make the most of our resources. This week Park Slope Collegiate, a school serving sixth- through twelfth-grade students representing Brooklyn’s socio-economic diversity, hosted a second set of Math4Science lessons in its eighth grade math classroom. Today’s session began with questions about how students get to school and who they think designs and maintains the subway lines, buses, trains, sidewalks, and roads that take them there. The student who answered “engineers” was so eager to read to the class about Civil Engineer Tysheina Robertson that he raised his hand and shouted out “Me, me, me!”
The enthusiasm continued and spread when Ms. Vaughan gave her students an opportunity to share their questions for Robertson, who is helping build Denver’s first commuter rail. “While you were building the system, did you have any trouble with it?” asked one student. Another asked, “When it rains, how do they dry off the tracks?” And a third wondered how long it takes to build the entire system. Another eighth grader wondered “How do you make the rails turn?”
M4S Teacher Training Coordinator Janice Weintraub and Co-Founder Justine Henning noted students’ curiosity about Civil Engineer Tysheina Robertson and their engagement with the problem sets that connected linear equations to her work. It was wonderful to see students whose primary language is Spanish or Arabic engaging with the math. Also exciting were the ways the opening discussion, mini-lesson and M4S problem sets gave students with different levels of math skills opportunities to participate and to draw upon their own experiences and interests.
Our fundraising efforts have raised over $10,000, most recently at the house party hosted by M4S Co-Founder and COO, Brendan Mernin and his family. Many thanks to everyone on our team, from board members to staff for your contributions, from hosting fundraisers to speaking so eloquently about what we do and why we do it. Support M4S at School’s partnerships with schools like Park Slope Collegiate and help us make our Explore Math program available to students and teachers everywhere by clicking “DONATE” on any page of www.math4science.org.
We continue to interview and profile scientists, engineers, and other STEM professionals for our Explore Science program. Watch the website this summer to learn about toxic chemical-eating fish, horseshoe crabs, the battles that surrounded the development of calculus, and more.
