Ascent Academy is part of the Acton Academy family of schools. A signature event for Acton is the Children’s Business Fair. Businesses are created and launched by children and showcased at the Fair where visitors can purchase their products. MathHappens were invited to provide a pop up mathematical play space by the organizers of the event at Ascent Academy in
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Visiting Math Circles: Texas A & M
Texas A & M University (TAMU) provides a robust math circle program for the community with approximately 50 student participants at three levels, Pre-Algebra, Algebra/Geometry and Algebra II and above. We were pleased to be invited to provide the program on November 18, 2023. We started with some free play that included a balance scale with base 2 and base
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Take and Make: T-Puzzles
The T-Puzzle is a very old puzzle and it comes in several versions. In the version we made, the width and height are the same. Jordan Varat cut a board with silhouettes as puzzles that we will send to our math rooms in Austin, Mankato and Albuquerque. Megan Do worked on the CAD files and created the printable silhouettes
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On the road: Pflugerville Makerpfest
Melissa Wilkinson and Megan Do were at the Pflugerville Public Library Maker Pfest Event June 3rd to share some of our favorite maker projects, including the brand new Spectre tile, puzzle a day, egg tangrams, cars with unusual wheels and more with this community just north of Austin. Unlike the old “new” tile, this one tessellates without a pattern and
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Partner Spotlight: Math Events using our Materials and Ideas
We love partnerships that offer opportunities to learn to everyone! We are so pleased to have received an email and a link to a presentation about a math evening planned in part with our materials. The organizer shared some ways she used our materials and we can see them in the slide show she created. We highly recommend Blocks
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Networking: IEEE Conference, Baltimore MD
This conference was a great opportunity to meet some bright young people running poster sessions, hear some talks on NSF initiatives in STEM education and network with other exhibitors all in the John’s Hopkins Physics Building. Matt Hertel, coordinator of the MathHappens Room at Austin Nature and Science Center and MathHappens Co-Founder and board member Phil Siegel were both there.
Cedar Creek STEAM Day
It was great to return to Cedar Creek Elementary March 3, one year later with Matt Hertel, Megan Do, and Quan Nguyen. The students do all of their math work on iPads and lessons are taught on a smart board so we were excited to bring them some physical activities. Fourth graders had a chance to explore the 21st Century
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2023 MathHappens @ STEM UT Girl Day!
MVP Mason Chng and event dream team: Stefany Espinoza, Megan Do, Ella Basken, Laura Choi, Naila Hajiyeva spent the day on the 2nd floor of Wel on the University of Texas Campus for STEM Girl Day. Mason has been preparing the activity for Girl Day for months in and between our other projects, and the whole MathHappens Team pitched in.
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The Math Room: One Year at Austin Nature and Science Center
On site in Austin to celebrate on Feb 18: Teacher Julie Wu, MH Admin Melissa Wilkinson and Lauren Siegel; UT and UTeach students Ella Basken, Matt Hertel, Laura Choi and Quan Nguyen; Stefany Espinoza and Marianne Villanueva. Matt has managed the room since June 2022. Putting a math room in a public place of play, learning and nature is a
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MathHappens@Explora! Albuquerque, New Mexico
We are so happy to start this collaboration with Explora! in Albuquerque, NM. Ishtar Rosario Medina, a student at University of New Mexico is coordinating this program and Queen Anderson also a student at UNM (rt below) is going to be a key facilitator. We were also honored to have the founder of CFEMAT, Dr. Hector Rosario at Explora hosting
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