Based on the many proposals made by participants when they registered, we were able to identify a number of themes, which we have grouped into three types of workshops: "Meta", "How to..." and "Activities development".
The " Meta" workshop is dedicated to find a good way to share outreach activities
The "How to...." workshops seek to define good practices or share expertise on the creation of activities around five themes.
In the "Activities development" sessions, the aim is to develop new activities based on the participants' proposals.
- Meta
- One platform to unite them all
- How to…
- Targeting an activity
- Emotional math
- Fictionalization
- Maths & art
- Gamification of research
- Activities development
- The idea is good, but…
- Visualization
- Let’s dream (activities from scratch)
24.10.22 | 25.10.22 | 26.10.22 | 27.10.22 | 28.10.22 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Workshop 1 | Activities development - The idea is good, but… & Let’s dream (activities from scratch) | How to… - Targeting an activity | Meta - One platform to unite them all | How to… - | How to… - Maths & art |
| How to… - Gamification of research | |||||
Workshop 2 | Activities development - The idea is good, but… | How to… - Emotional math | Activities development - Visualization | Activities development - Let’s dream (activities from scratch) |
Meta
One platform to unite them all
Moderator: Andreas Matt (Imaginary)
In this workshop, we will lay the foundation for large infrastructure or a collection of tools for math communication professionals, where we can find resources, lists, projects (a bit like mathcom.wiki, but more modern and more exhaustive). This could be placed within IMU and be the main entry for newbies and oldies in the field.
How to…
Targeting an activity
Moderator: Elise Raphael (University of Geneva)
With the increasing number of international days of something or on the occasion of holidays such as Halloween or Christmas, there are many opportunities to offer activities that link mathematics to the theme of the day. However, is it enough to offer classic activities with a thematic wrapping or do some real adaptations become necessary?
And how can an outreach activity be adapted for use in the classroom? Again, is it just a question of wrapping it up in a way that puts more emphasis on learning or do real adaptations need to be made?
Through the experiences of the participants, we will try to identify techniques that have proved successful and we will try to build concrete examples.
Fictionalization
Moderator : Fathi Ben Aribi (UCLouvain)
From the historical figures met in Doctor Who to the scientific hijinks of the kids in the Magic School Bus, most sciences have had their time in the spotlight in fictionalized works. What about math? How can we do mathematics outreach through fiction? But first… should we? Is a western the best setting to present knot theory? What can romance stories tell us about the axiom of choice? Along the way of discussing such questions, we may also review mathematical models of non-linear stories like gamebooks, and we will try to create new math activities. This workshop is a story you cannot miss, a story in which YOU are the (co)protagonist!
Some first questions:
- For a given mathematical subject to popularize is it relevant to present it through fiction?
- If we don’t know if it is relevant, how could we determine this?
- If it seems relevant, which type of fiction could be appropriate?
Proposed plan of approach :
- Reviewing forms of fiction: novel, comic book, radio, theatre, movie, board game…
- Reviewing genres of fiction: science fiction, comedy, historical, mystery, horror…
- Linearity of the plot and influence of the audience: anything between an un-modifiable classical story and a full improve show with audience input.
- Non-linear plots and graph theory, with the example of « choose your own adventure » gamebooks.
- Create a new outreach activity mixing mathematics and creative writing: present basics of graph theory and non-linear stories, then make the audience create a non-linear story associated to a given graph.
Maths & art
Moderator : Shaula Fiorelli (University of Geneva)
Linking maths with art to reach a different or wider audience is part of the new approach to outreach. However, many questions arise:
- Would any mathematical subject be suitable for the exercise?
- Should we start from a work or a body of work to arrive at the mathematical concept or the opposite?
- What is the contribution of artists' residencies?
- What motivates an artist to base their work on mathematics?
- How can we make the link between art and maths without the public losing interest?
Thanks to the presence of an artist and scientists who are also artists, we will try to identify guidelines for setting up activities linking math and art.
Emotional math
How can we involve the public by not only mobilising reasoning or mathematical skills but through emotions or activities that mobilise the whole body? We will try to define the framework to be put in place, which activities and themes lend themselves to this exercise and what is the purpose of it.
Gamification, from research to outreach and outreach to research
Moderator : Erika Roldan (Max Planck Institute for the Mathematics in the Sciences and the Center for Scalable Data analytics and Artificial intelligence at Leipzig University)
Can an outreach activity lead to research and vice-versa? Is it possible to do citizen science in mathematics? These are the kind of questions we will try to answer during the workshop.
We will explore the possibility of creating activities based on open problems that could lead to new ideas for research. We will also explore the possibility of creating and using tools that allow us to analyze the practices of participants and mediators for the purpose of outreach research.
Activities development
Each of the three workshops will work as follows:
- Participants will briefly present the activities they want to develop (max 5 minutes) and then the other participants will be able to choose which activity they want to work on, forming small working groups (3 to 5 people).
- Not all the activities presented will necessarily be worked on.
- Each group will be given some free time to develop the activity independently.
- Finally, there will be a pooling of progress at the end of the afternoon.
All the activities developed during these workshops will be freely usable by all the participants and a description will be put online to diffuse them under a Creative commons license.
The idea is good, but…
Some participants have activities that they struggle to develop. Either they don't work as planned, or they don't achieve the desired goal, or they struggle to involve the audience. Comparing their ideas with those of other participants may help to find a solution.
Visualization
The activities to be developed in the workshop are grouped around the theme of visualisation. The ideas cover a wide spectrum, from the construction of an elliptical mirror to the visualisation of 4D, from kaleidoscope webcams to a projection chamber that allows the visualisation of a shadow but not the object that casts it.
Let’s dream (activities from scratch)
In this workshop, participants will present activities that are still in the early stages of development. The group work will allow to better define the activities and to lay the foundations for their development.
