Math4Science introduces kids to the exciting, important careers available to them in the sciences as they learn math.
We aim to improve students’ performance in math class and to increase and diversify the number of people entering STEM fields. Our mission is to:
Engage young math students by helping them understand the ways their own lives and the lives of people they care about are improved by work done in the sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)
Inspire students to see themselves as future members of the STEM workforce by introducing them to scientists, computer technologists, engineers, and mathematicians
Prepare students to study math and science in college and to enter the pipeline to STEM careers by helping them understand the relevance and importance of the work they do in their math and science classes
Each Math4Science lesson gives students an understanding of math’s real-world applications. They come away with concrete ideas about how they can use the math they are learning in school to build fundamentally important careers for themselves. Never again will students ask, “When am I going to use this?”
Math4Science is…
In 2023, The New York Times reported that “The math and reading performance of 13-year-olds in the United States has hit the lowest level in decades.” Additionally, there is a growing mistrust and misunderstanding of scientists among the American population. At Math4Science, we address these challenges directly by setting up encounters between young students and STEM professionals.
Our online curriculum is available to all students, teachers, and schools free of charge. This includes Jobs in STEM — descriptions of the fields in which our scientists, technologists, engineers, and mathematicians work. Our Meet the Scientists profiles of people who work in those fields provide math and science teachers with ways of engaging every student in their classrooms. We offer a growing number of worksheets in which master teachers apply the work of Math4Science STEM professionals to the math students learn before college.
Math4Science is funded by individual donations, by grants, and by schools who bring us in to train teachers to use our resources.
We encourage students of all backgrounds, races, abilities, sexual orientations, and gender identities to engage with STEM. To do this we represent the diversity of America in our staff, board members, STEM professionals, and the schools and students we serve.
When students read about and communicate with scientists, computer technologists, engineers, and mathematicians who look like them or have interests and experiences in common with them, they learn to see themselves as potential STEM professionals.
Math4Science does not represent and is not beholden to any particular educational or political ideology. Our featured scientists work for large corporations, small universities, nonprofits, and other organizations. Our pedagogy emerges from best practices in all approaches, from the most traditional to the most progressive.
