On Wednesday 27th June a group for Year 10 students from The Holgate Academy went to the University of Nottingham to take part in a day celebrating women in maths.
The day started with guest speaker Dr Emily Grossman a TV science broadcaster, who did a talk titled “Lies, Damned Lies and Newspapers”. Dr Grossman posed the question ‘Can we believe everything we read in the papers?’. Dr Grossman used her own “embarrassing moments” to answer the question.
Students then split off into groups to take part in 5 different workshops; Workshop 1: Maths in Veterinary Science, this workshop showcased the mathematics relating to animal health. Students investigated the maths around various animal health parameters, including blood transfusions and heart rates.
Workshop 2: STEM in Style, this workshop explored the Mathematics of Fashion with Takita Bartlett (mathematician, designer and founder of STEM in Style).
Workshop 3: Rolls Royce “Curiosity”, In this workshop students investigated what it means to be a curios mathematician and how this helps to develop a strong career in mathematics. Emma Jackson (a graduate student working at Rolls Royce) guided students through some interesting problems involving “Series” and “Limits” in terms of Fractals.
Workshop 4: Walgreens Boots Alliance, this workshop investigated how mathematics is involved in the analysis of targeting a consumer market. Students looked at data in a novel way and learned how to calculate incremental sales using a given formula. They used this information to recommend which consumer groups are more valuable in a given context and who they might recommend to target on a future advertising campaign.
Workshop 5: Dragon Quiz, the final workshop of the day, this session saw students get competitive in the attempt to answer as many maths questions as possible to form their “dragon”. The students worked in a relay type fashion to beat the clock and test their mathematical knowledge.
A brilliant day of mathematics for all the students involved! It was a fantastic opportunity for students to see how maths is used in a variety of career options. The students engaged with all the sessions and was an absolute credit to themselves and their school.
