Real World Maths

Explore how mathematics helps us solve real-world programs. Students will investigate graph theory and network modelling using nodes and edges to understand how mathematical systems can solve real-world challenges such as train scheduling. They will discover how probability and patterns in genetics can be represented in a simple card game and applied to studies of inheritance. Through hands-on challenges involving 3D puzzles, spatial reasoning and use of fold-and-cut theorem, students develop problem solving and visualisation skills used in many STEM fields, highlighting how mathematics is not just about numbers, it allows us to understand the world around us.

• Networks – Examines graph theory with a focus on mathematical modelling, from train scheduling to pandemics.
• The Game of SET – A simple card game that reveals some important concepts about probability (and, unusually enough, developed by a genetics researcher who based it on the hereditary characteristics of epilepsy in German Shepherds).
• Spatial Reasoning – A very hands-on session in which students’ spatial reasoning skills are tested, using activities such as Soma Cubes and ‘Fold and Cut’.