One student who attended said, “At the Math Fair I noticed that there is math everywhere in life, and even people who say they do not like math do it every day without knowing it.”
The most popular activity was the Budget Task Cards station where current students used contextualized information about a person’s spending and earning to determine if they were within or over budget. At another station many students worked to understand equivalent fractions by using geometric shapes in an activity called Pattern Block Fractions. Yet another station asked student to evaluate advertisements with mathematical errors and write explanations of why the calculations were incorrect.
Special guest Alan Sherwin gave a demo of his Halloween-themed facial recognition computer program that pointed out monster cutouts with a skeletal finger, which he created using coding language and a lot of math.
Some alumni from the class came back to facilitate activities, verify student work, and share their experiences. Carlos Rosario School alum Lifen shared with event attendees why math has been important to her as she achieved her GED and now is able to help her children by answering their questions and helping them with their homework. Lifen is now in college and sees many of her classmates struggling with the math. She encouraged students at the event to take the math class at the school.