TU Dublin visit Caritas College for maths workshop
On Thursday 17 February, the School of Mathematical Sciences' Mathematics Engagement Coordinator, Aisling McGlinchey, visited Caritas College to host a outreach workshop for Junior Certificate students.
The School of Mathematical Sciences is a partner in the TU Dublin PATH 3-funded, Programme for Access to Higher Education. An important part of this programme are the mathematics outreach activities, coordinated by the School's Mathematics Engagement Coordinator. The TU Dublin Mathematics Outreach Junior Certificate workshops are run with partner school linked to our City, Tallaght and Blanchardstown locations and are designed to increase engagement with mathematics by Junior Certificate students.
This week's workshop was held at Caritas College and Ciaran O’Sullivan (organiser), Chris Keogh and Aisling McGlinchey met 30 second-year students from two different classes. The workshop consisted of two fun activities, a pizza slicing problem and electronic snapkits. The pizza slicing problem is a tasty test to find the maximum number of pizza pieces that can be produced from a single pizza using different numbers of cuts. Electronic snapkits focusses on a different aspect of logical thinking, teaching the basic engineering, electronics and circuitry concepts required to assemble electronic circuits on a simple “rows-and-columns” (Cartesian) base grid.
These fun activities both promote problem-solving, using analytical approaches and encourage students to work together and help each other constructively. It was fantastic to see the enjoyment of the students who fully engaged in the activities, asking questions and excelling in group work.