Outreach
Staff and students from the Department of Mathematics work together to engage with communities outside the University.
Our outreach activities see members of the department, often supported by MathSoc students, visiting schools and colleges to entertain and inform students on a variety of mathematical topics.
Schools engagement
We offer the following talks and activites to interest and engage students and teachers - they can be tailored to different age groups, and made relevant to the appropriate syllabus.
- Why study Mathematics?
- Along Came a Spider: a pure mathematics talk on summing infinite series of numbers
- The Mathematics of Soap Bubbles: the applications of mathematics in solving geometrical problems (can involve calculus). This activity is now available online.
- Non-periodic tiling: Is it possible to tile an infinite plane with a pattern that never repeats? Uses ideas about symmetry and recursion.
- Mathematics in Sport: why is geometry and mechanics important in many sporting activities? This activity using algebra and calculus to optimise motor racing strategy is available online.
- Fractals: how should we calculate the dimension of a shape? Illustrates the application of fractions and/or logarithms to geometry.
We also offer recorded material from past events:
- Quantum Computation
- Using Differential Equations to solve a murder mystery
- The Stochastic Frog
- Modelling and Testing the Spread of a Disease
- Geometry of Foams and Minimal Surfaces
- The geometry of the pound coin.
Please contact us on maths@aber.ac.uk for further details, or to enquire about other possible presentations.
