talkSTEM, SMU, and our partner sites are thrilled to announce the launch of the March Mathness Challenge soon. This is a great opportunity for teachers, museum and community educators, school / out of school learning site administrators, children in grades 3-12, and absolutely anyone interested in seeing math come alive in any or all of our partner sites through app-guided walking tours. It’s easy, completely free, and our goals are simple:
1. to get everyone in the Dallas area to see math at our partner sites by going on the walking tours we have designed (your schedule, your preferences – no constraints).
2. to get absolutely everyone regardless of where they are to create their own math walk stops and share with us. You can view sample math walk stops on our free video library – you’ll get the idea very quickly. The most important part of each math walk stop (ie each video) is the questions – so that’s what we want to focus on for March Mathness. So, create your own math walk stop wherever you like and then share with us!
What is a math walk stop? It’s a photo/ reel of a real world place (or it could be an artwork that you love) together with YOUR math-related question. Share with us on instagram (@talkingSTEM) and use #MarchMathness. By doing one OR both of these things, you will be automatically entered into a weekly contest and we will be giving out weekly prizes through March.
We’ve compiled our walkSTEM tours of Dallas (and added a few new ones!) into a competition to explore and engage with Math in our great city. By engaging with the Math that’s embedded in our built, living, artistic, and architectural environments, you gain insights and perspectives about our parks, artworks, animals, plants, and neighborhoods. That’s right you get to see these places, objects, and animals using not only your math lens but also your STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) lens! It’s easy, flexible, free, and fun; you can take the challenge on your own or as a team. All info is on the March Mathness Challenge webpage. Explore it now. Teachers, you can hear from educators who have used this challenge with students as a fun way to get them excited about learning math during spring break, over weekends, and to get their families involved. Get creative and have your students and faculty take the challenge. It’s free, flexible and fun!
So head over to downtown Dallas, or to the Zoo, or to the Arboretum, or Red Bird Mall or any one of the 15 participating Dallas sites now! This year we are also excited to welcome Grand Prairie ISD as a partner site. Students, families, and faculty at Daniels Academy of Math and Science in Grand Prairie ISD can take their own math walk on campus, thanks to our collaboration with them! This tour is part of the March Mathness collection on the Otocast app (free download).
Participants can download the Otocast app from Google Play or the iOS App Store and log in with an email to start collecting badges for visiting and learning in parks, zoos, nature centers, and more! For every seven stops visited, you’ll earn an entry into our weekly raffles, each with a prize of $50. We also have a second set of raffles for those sharing selfies and STEM questions of their own that they think of while visiting these stops, and both sets of raffle prizes double during the final week of March!
Collect all the raffle badges and advance the ranks from just starting to dribble up to toward champion-league material! The app will keep track of your progress for you, and can do so across multiple devices – so feel free to share a login with your friends, classmates, or family and make a team worthy of the March Mathness title!
For more rules, information, and endorsements, hop on over to gomathfinder.org/the-march-mathness-challenge, or watch the video below for more detailed instruction on using the March Mathness guide in Otocast.
Note that you must sign in to Otocast in order for us to be able to keep track of your raffle entries and stop visits, and to let you know when you’ve won! Also, Otocast will notify you of nearby stops and play the audio of tour stops you’re currently at automatically by default – if you find this distracting, just turn it off in the app’s settings page, or turn off the app’s notifications all-together in your phone’s settings!
Dr. Koshi Dhingra has dedicated her career to STEM education and is passionate about having every child live up to their potential. Seeing a lack of girls and other underrepresented youth in STEM programs, she founded talkSTEM in 2015 to address the imbalance. She has a doctorate in science education from Teachers College, Columbia University, has years of experience teaching in graduate and undergraduate programs, and has held leadership roles in universities. She advises and collaborates with a broad range of educational institutions globally. Dr. Dhingra began her career teaching science in middle and high school in New York. She lives in Dallas, Texas with her husband, three children, and two dogs.
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