The Irish Mathematical Trust
Maths Week is a special time of the year for Irish mathematics...But for teachers around the country, it may be hard to decide on just the right activity for your students. The Irish Mathematical Trust is bringing you a series of festive, easy to use activities to cater for all tastes. Moreover, most of these are not just for limited use: we believe in celebrating Mathematics all year round!
Mathematicians in Our Lives
This initiative is a legacy of the successful Boole2School programme enjoyed in 2015 by more than 70,000 students on George Boole’s 200th birthday; however this time, George Boole is joined by William Rowan Hamilton in our ongoing series “Mathematicians in our Lives”. We will be making available all of the resources on logic and mathematics from our Boole2School programme including lesson plans, student worksheets and other class resources while also offering brand new resources on Hamilton including an introduction to his mathematical ideas and their practical applications, complete with thematic, quaternion and Hamilton cycle based puzzles and games.
This Could Be You
This is a scheme by which mathematical guests, from college students and researchers to industry professionals, are being interviewed by students in schools to shed light on how people from all backgrounds can end up learning mathematics even when faced with difficulties and setbacks, and how they can build a mathematics based career. We hope that these talks will encourage good study practice and help students and help students gain resilience and self-confidence, by showing that one doesn’t have to be a “born genius” to become brilliant at mathematics.
PRoblem-solving for Irish Second level Mathematicians (PRISM)
The PRoblem-solving for Irish Second level Mathematicians (PRISM) contest is the brainchild of NUI Galway mathematicians and IMT members Dr. James Cruickshank and Dr. Rachel Quinlan. It has run every year since 2006 on Maths Week, and it aims to encourage students to take an interest in problem-solving from an early age.
Each participating school holds separate hour-long contests for pre-Junior Certificate and post-Junior Certificate students. The contests feature a series of twenty problems, in multiple-choice format, to test the problem-solving dexterity of participants.
The Award for Irish Teachers of Mathematics
Finally we feel that teachers deserve a lot of recognition as well so we have set up the Award for Irish Teachers of Mathematics, a reward to the teachers that inspire and draw out the potential of all students. The main award consists of a trophy together with €10,000 and everyone who is nominated receives a “Thank You Teacher” poster for their school.