AIMSSEC Motivate videoconference lessons for schools

It has allowed me to view maths as an ever growing science as opposed to an ancient closed one (Gauteng student)

I was fully supported by the co-ordinators of the project. I also learned more about mathematics and how to teach it (Western Cape teacher)

MOTIVATE is a unique and exciting videoconferencing project based in the University of Cambridge, linking primary and secondary schools around the world. MOTIVATE enables school students of all ages, particularly those from disadvantaged areas, to take part in live videoconferences with world-class university mathematicians and scientists. Many schools in South Africa have participated in MOTIVATE conferences since 1999.

If your school is in the Cape Town area then you can apply to AIMSSEC to take part. AIMSSEC arranges buses to take learners to the MTN Sciencentre in Canal Walk for the conferences. If your university or business has video-conference facilities, and you are prepared to invite learners from local schools to take part in a video-conference, then you can also apply.

To find out more and to see the future programme of conferences that your school could take part in see the MOTIVATE website.

For further information, e-mail Toni Beardon

Videoconferences between the UK and South Africa

Is There Anyone Out There?
Carolin Crawford, Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge
19 May and 15 June 2010
Grade 7 learners from Luzuku Primary School, Mseki Primary School & Lehlohonolo Primary School, Gugulethu

Learners will be encouraged to use their scientific and mathematical knowledge to go beyond science fiction to consider what life there might be elsewhere in the universe and to find out more about astronomy and the tools that astronomers use to answer fundamental questions. These are the sort of questions we will consider in this conference.

What kind of planets are in our own Solar System ? What kind of planets orbit around other stars in our Galaxy? How do astronomers find these 'extra-solar planets'? How can they tell if they might be suitable for the development of life? How likely is it that primitive life forms exist elsewhere in our galaxy? How likely is it that intelligent life exists elsewhere in our galaxy?

Mathematical Games
Presenter: Liz Woodham, University of Cambridge

12.00 - 17.00 (SA time) 25 February 2010 Grade 6 learners from Luzuku Primary School, Gugulethu, St Chad's Primary School, Oldham, Carpenter's Primary School, London & Liss Junior School, Hampshire UK An opportunity to explore and apply mathematical concepts and logical thinking to develop winning strategies. The games will all be taken from the NRICH website, and are certain to provide a motivating and engaging context in which to share mathematics together.

Climate Change
2 December 2009
Presenters from the University of Cambridge:
Rachel Thomas and Marianne Freiberger (MMP)
Peter Wadhams (Head Polar Oceans Physics Group)

A full day conference for Grade 11 learners from Muizenberg, Grassy Park and Steenberg High Schools, Cape Town and Year 12 learners from UK: Ousedale School, Bucks; Nunthorpe TSEF, Middlesborough, William Morris SFC, London, Blackburn Schools ISSP and Havant College Hants.

This interactive day conference allowed learners to explore issues related to climate change with the help of worksheets from the PLUS website. The day was hands-on and interactive, with learners working on problems and sharing their thoughts and ideas.

Sea ice extent in September 2007. The pink line shows the average extent 1979 to 2000.

Some of the issues studied on the day: How does climate change affect the polar ice caps? What mapping techniques are used for polar expeditions? Learn about mapping techniques including stereographic projection. What navigation methods were used by the Catlin Artic Survey Team to find their way to the North Pole? How are mathematical models used in predicting the future climate of the earth?

Proof
October 2008
Steve Hewson and Toni Beardon, University of Cambridge

A full day conference with UK schools for Grade 11 learners from Cape Academy and COSAT.

What is the difference between a convincing argument and a mathematical proof? When are mathematicians satisfied that a result is proved? What different methods of proof are there? Proof and rigour in thinking lie at the heart of mathematics. This interactive day conference allowed learners to explore these useful and fascinating ideas with the help of several problems from the NRICH website. The day was hands-on and interactive, with learners working on problems and sharing their thoughts and ideas

April and June 2008 2 AIMSSEC Motivate Videoconferences Forensic Mathematics Chris Budd, University of Bath Grade 8 Oranjekloof Primary School, Imizamo Yethu Township, Hout Bay with Pleckgate High School and Ryde School in the UK In this conference the learners became mathematical detectives by using mathematics to relate evidence to what caused that evidence. They studied examples from crime fighting and also archaeology.

September 2007 to May 2008 6 AIMSSEC Motivate Videoconferences Data Handling Exchanging statistics about our countries Jenny Gage, University of Cambridge Grades 8 and 9, Ravensmead Secondary School, and Hottentot Hollands High School, W. Cape with Pleckgate High School and Thomas Peacocke Community College in the UK This is a cross curricular programme involving mathematics, science, technology, geography and citizenship. Learners exchange data relating to their own experiences, their local areas and their countries. They learn how to collect data, how to analyse and present data and how to interpret their own data and statistics from books, newspapers and the internet.

February and April 2007 AIMSSEC Motivate Videoconference Spherical Geometry and Lengths of Flight Paths Alan Beardon, University of Cambridge Grade 11, COSAT, Cape Academy, Steenberg High School, Fairmount High School and schools in the UK Students calculated three dimensional coordinates of places from their latitude and longitude and worked out the distances between Cape Town and other cities. They checked whether the sign at the lighthouse at Cape Point gives the distances correctly

September 2006 to May 2007 6 AIMSSEC Motivate Videoconferences Data Handling Exchanging statistics about our countries Jenny Gage, University of Cambridge Grades 8 and 9, Heathfield, Malibu, Sithembele Matiso, Thandokhulu and Mondale High Schools and schools in the UK This is a cross curricular programme involving mathematics, science, technology, geography and citizenship. Learners exchange data relating to their own experiences, their local areas and their countries. They learn how to collect data, how to analyse and present data and how to interpret their own data and statistics from books, newspapers and the internet.

April and May 2006 AIMSSEC Motivate Videoconference Energy - The Sun and The Earth Helen Mason, University of Cambridge Grade 10, Cape Academy of Mathematics Science and Technology, Constantia Helen Mason is a researcher with the space project SOHO. This is a satellite used to study the emissions coming from the Sun. The conference focussed on issues of global energy production and our use of energy.

March 2006 AIMSSEC Motivate Videoconference 101 Uses of the Quadratic Equation Jenny Gage, University of Cambridge Grade 11, COSAT, Khayelitsha and Cape Academy, Constantia The project work inculded paper sizes, graphs of quadratic functions, Babylonian mathematics, continued fractions, projectiles, stopping distances, paths of comets and the history and significance of irrational numbers.

September and October 2005 AIMSSEC Motivate Videoconference Measurement Kevin Mingay, Headteacher, Silverdale Primary School Grade 4 Oranjekloof Primary School, Imizamo Yethu Township, Hout Bay and Silverdale and Guilsborough Primary Schools, UK The learners made many discoveries about measurement including an investigation of the height of the giant Goliath in the biblical story.

September 2005 to May 2006 6 AIMSSEC Motivate Videoconferences Discovery in Mathematics and Science Jim Floud, Open University Grade 8 and 9, Livingstone High School, Belgravia High School, SA and Ulverstone and Whitehaven High Schools, Cumbria, UK Learners did project work in school making their own discoveries about mathematical and scientific ideas. They explained their discoveries to the other learners in presentations at the conferences.

April and May 2005
AIMSSEC Motivate Videoconference
Pictures of Things That Move
Experiments with Gravity

Jim Floud, Open University

Grade 5 Oranjekloof Primary School, Imizamo Yethu Township, Hout Bay The learners did project work on rolling balls down slopes and recording how far they travelled on reaching flat ground.

6 AIMSSEC Motivate Videoconferences
21 October, 1 December 2004
27 January, 15 March, 28 April, 21 June 2005
Discovering Space

Lisa Jardine Wright, The University of Cambridge Institute of Asronomy
At The Old Mutual Business School, Pinelands for Grades 8 and 9 learners from
Thembelihle and Langa High Schools, W. Cape with John Kelly Technology College
and Seven King's High School, London.
Sponsored by The Actuarial Society of South Africa.

On this journey, learners studied the Solar System, the Milky Way and finally the Universe to find out about some of the mathematical and scientific ideas involved. Learners worked on projects in maths and science lessons in school and made presentations about their work. They were given equipment and learning resources and visited the South African Astronomical Observatory. Lisa's home page

5 October 2004
AIMSSEC Motivate Videoconference
on Financial Mathematics

Philip Cooper Southampton University and The Actuarial Education Company

for Grade 11 learners from
Thembelihle High School and COSAT Western Cape,
St Peter's School, Wolverhampton & Seven King's High School, London.
At The Old Mutual Business School, Pinelands.
Sponsored by The Actuarial Society of South Africa.
Philip's home page

The Transit of Venus
AIMSSEC Motivate Videoconference for learners from Grades 10 to 12
11.30 a.m. 11 May and 24 June 2004

Schools in the UK, in the Western Cape and in Gauteng in South Africa linked up for two video conferences, the first to learn about the transit and the second to make presentations about the projects they had carried out. They asked each other questions as they had done different project work. The students observed the transit early in the morning on on 8 June, compared the different views they got, and then used relatively simple trigonometry to work out some results. The vc before the transit gave them the background information and at the final vc they reported back on their project work.

Learners from Gauteng joined in the conferences from the University of the Witwatersrand and made the observations at the Pilanesberg Game Park assisted by astronomers at an International Conference there. Learners from the Western Cape made the observations at the MTN Sciencentre, Canal Walk, assisted by the MTN staff and Dr Helen Mason from the University of Cambridge.

The learners researched some of the historical aspects. The last transit of Venus was in 1882 and scientific expeditions were made from the UK to SA to observe it at the time. They also studied parallax and how to use it to measure distances to some of the nearest stars. It was part of the plan that the learners would make a presentation in their own schools for the benefit of their school communities.

Helen Mason, home page

To find out more about the Transit of Venus, try these websites: www.chocky.demon.co.uk/oas/venus.html www.saao.ac.za/~wpk/tov1882/tovwell.html sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/transit/transit.html didaktik.physik.uni-essen.de/~backhaus/VenusProject.htm

The Planets

For learners age 7 to 9 years on 10 February and 17 March 2004 at 3.15 pm South Africa time
Carolin Crawford, University of Cambridge Institute of Astronomy

Carolin Crawford, home page

What do you know about our solar system? How big are the planets? How far apart are they? Is Pluto really a planet? Could you live on one of the other planets? Where do all the names come from? Find out all this, and much more, by joining in our videoconferences. Carolin is a Royal Society research fellow at the Institute of Astronomy, which is part of the University of Cambridge. She uses observations to find out about distant parts of the Universe such as clusters of galaxies and quasars. She started out in Astronomy as a child looking at the stars from the back garden with her Dad, but now uses data from satellites that orbit the earth, and travels across the world to use telescopes on remote mountaintops. Unfortunately the parrot is not available for videoconferences.

The Black Castle of Codeland

For learners age 8 to 10 years on 8 June and 25 June 2004 at 2.15pm South Africa time
Ian Short, University of Cambridge Department of Pure Mathematics

Ian lives in north-west Codeland and studies maths. His elf girlfriend is a vet and they hope in the future to work on a castle estate together. home page

Codeland is in Peril! The black castle of Codeland had been silent for ten years since the King Villainous was crowned Then slowly strange things began to happen, strange creatures were seen and strange noises were heard. People, dwarves, and other mythical creatures went missing and soon nobody dared to leave their homes. Darkness looked set to envelop Codeland when a brave secret elf sent encoded messages to the four kingdoms of the north, east, south and west calling on them to unite. These four messages must be cracked so that the four castles combine to defeat King Villainous!

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Information about Motivate
Objectives

• To enrich the mathematical experience of school students, to broaden their mathematical horizons, to give them an experience of collaborative working on mathematical tasks and of presenting reports of their work to an audience, to raise aspirations and to improve mathematical thinking and communication skills.
• To set up videoconferencing centres in schools and to develop guidelines for technical and media presentation that will also serve other subjects across the curriculum and enable schools to develop videoconferencing links with other schools around the world
• To develop new pedagogical applications of communication technology, to conduct an ongoing research study and evaluation and to disseminate the findings widely.

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How the conferences are organised

The videoconference experience may last a single day, in the style of a masterclass with input from the speaker and the students alternating through the day. Alternatively students may attend two shorter conferences and have a month between to work on their projects and presentations. The third option, for Grade 8 and 9 classes, if you want to forge a close partnership with a school in the UK, you can sign up for a series of six video-conferences which take place between September and the following June.

MOTIVATE project work is cross curricular, enriching the normal curriculum, helping learners to develop transferable skills of team working in groups and presenting their research. The work is practical and investigative, designed to stretch the learners intellectually and to give them the experience of working in the same way that professional mathematicians and scientists do.

At the start of the conference a representative of each school group introduces the group. Then the mathematical scientist talks to the students about why he or she chose to study maths and pursue research as a career and then briefly discusses their own research. The message is 'You can be a mathematician' encouraging learners to see mathematics as playing a part in their own futures.

To date MOTIVATE has linked by videoconference over 500 classes in schools across the UK as well as international links to India: (Chenai), South Africa: (The Western Cape and Gauteng) and Singapore.

MOTIVATE started as part of the NRICH Online Maths Community in 1997 (nrich.maths.org) and was chosen in 1999 for funding by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) as one of its pioneer projects. Motivate has also been supported by EMTA.

For further information, e-mail Toni Beardon

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