Project Title: An FDU Math Circle to Extend the Radius of Outreach

Project Director: Mark Farag

Project Summary: The Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU) Math Circle is a weekly online exploration of topics in Number Theory and Abstract Algebra by talented and motivated high school students with guidance from a member of the FDU faculty. In exploring these abstract mathematical topics, students learn how to formulate conjectures from well-considered examples, and they gain experience with formulating proofs for or finding counterexamples to those conjectures. Students thereby increase their understanding of what abstract Mathematics is and how it is done. Both organically through the Math Circle sessions and by interactions with guest mathematicians, students are also encouraged to consider the possibility of pursuing Mathematics as a college major and a career path.

Project Title: MaPP Challenge ’25

Project Director: PJ Couch

Project Summary: The MaPP Challenge is a roughly three-hour puzzlehunt generally involving three threads of multiple related puzzles. Our puzzle designers take the essence of ideas from ongoing mathematical research, and distill them into puzzles accessible to our 7th-12th grade players, experienced as a themed alternate reality experience. Upon arrival at a host campus, teams of up to 8 students are collected together for an orientation session explaining the basic concept and boundaries of the game. At this time an overall narrative, often themed as a parody of some aspect of pop culture (movies, books, games), is presented to the teams. Once given the starting information, teams are presented with three location puzzles, each serving as a trailhead for a thread of puzzles, for which each puzzle solved reveals a new layer of puzzle in that thread. Eventually, these threads reveal an overall meta puzzle, requiring the team to collect together information from throughout the day to solve.

Project Title: Summer Camp in Board Games and Mathematics

Project Director: Kenneth Mulder

Project Summary: Over the last 20 years, there has been a renaissance in board game design resulting in the publication of several complex, systems-based board games, often referred to as Euro-style games. These games are highly strategic and engaging, and underlying many of them is a mathematical structure designed to simulate characteristics of a desired system. This summer camp in math and board games will introduce high school students to a variety of mathematical concepts, and more generally to the art of mathematical creation, by getting them to analyze and model a select set of Euro-style games. Through a desire to understand who wins and who loses, students will be led to create their own mathematical structures as well as to study and apply existing concepts from probability, graph theory, optimization, and the study of complex systems.

Project Title: Texas A&M University PReMa program

Project Director: Kun Wang

Project Summary: PReMa (Program for Research in Mathematics) is a free research program in mathematics for high school students. This program is designed to provide an excellent opportunity for students to work on individual or group research projects under the guidance of academic mentors from the Texas A&M university. Our goal is to expose students to the beauty and intricacy of advanced mathematics, as well as to allow them to get hands-on experience with all aspects of mathematical research. Operating as an annual outreach effort, PReMa spans the entire year, dedicating itself to enriching students’ mathematical education and research skills.

Project Title: Math Research Experience for Lowcountry High School Students and Teachers

Project Director: Breeanne Swart

Project Summary: Lowcountry high school students and teachers will join faculty from The Citadel for a week-long camp to solve open problems from journals such as The Fibonacci Quarterly and MAA publications. The participants will experience the research process from start to finish including finding open problems, exploring and solving the problems, presenting the results orally, and submitting a written solution to a publication. Daily presentations will provide participants with the opportunity to practice oral presentations skills with a final presentation to teachers, family, and friends. Participants will have the opportunity to complete written and oral presentations at the South Carolina Junior Academy of Sciences annual meeting in March or April 2025.

Project Title: USD Math Circle

Project Director: Catalin Georgescu

Project Summary: USD Math circle is an after-school program with the purpose of exposing students from grades to 7 -12 to topics not usually covered in the standard mathematical curriculum and to simultaneously prepare them for the AMC competitions. In a broader goal we try to build a hub and provide guidance for all the students in the region interested in a career in STEM. This club, under the guidance of the Department of Mathematical Sciences of the University of South Dakota, is an outreach program in collaboration with Vermillion High School which plans to develop and foster the interest in Mathematics of students in the South-East area of South Dakota.

Project Title: Culturally Responsive Mathematics Enrichment Activities for Middle and High School Students

Project Director: Diana Cheng

Project Summary: This project extends the work of 2020 & 2022 DMEGs and will provide culturally relevant mathematics enrichment experiences for middle and high school students throughout greater Baltimore, Maryland. These enrichment experiences will be designed by Towson University faculty in partnership with undergraduate preservice teachers. This structure provides opportunities for mentoring between Towson faculty and students as well as mentoring between university students and school students. Through this project, students at various academic levels will develop an awareness of authentic mathematic applications and thus raise awareness of career opportunities in mathematics.

Project Title: Central Florida Math Circle

Project Director: Seongchun Kwon

Project Summary: Central Florida Math Circle is a math enrichment program for regional middle school students offered by the math department at the University of Central Florida (UCF). It is a 6-week Saturday program held during the spring semester on the UCF campus. As part of our enhancement efforts, we will collaborate with three elementary and middle school regional public school teachers who are NSF/Noyce doctoral fellows pursuing an EdD at UCF. The program consists of three groups: Grade 6, Grade 7 & 8, and the Advanced Group. This collaboration aims to improve our existing program, with particular emphasis on enhancing the Grade 6 group’s experience.

Project Title: The 14th Math Day at the University of Guam

Project Director: Hideo Nagahashi

Project Summary: The University of Guam, Division of Mathematics and Computer Science organizes Math Day, the annual one-day event for high school and middle school students. Math Day cosists of two parts, Quiz Competition and Lecture. In the Quiz Competition, teams from individual schools are asked to solve math problems and trivia questions in front of a live audience present at the event. Teams compete in one of the three categories, Basic Algebra, Pre-Calculus, and Calculus. The second part will be a lecture given by a guest speaker invited from off island. Math Day started in 2008, and has been quite successful encouraging students to study more mathematics continuously.

Project Title: UM Math Day 2024

Project Director: Matt Roscoe

Project Summary: Math Day is a one-day mathematics enrichment event for high school students held at the University of Montana. Students attend workshops on topics in mathematics that are not traditionally included in K-12 education. Learning continues over a shared lunch and culminates in a panel discussion where professionals share how knowledge of mathematics is used in their everyday work.

Project Title: St Margaret’s School Math Circles

Project Director: Asia Matthews

Project Summary: The primary goal of this program is to guide students through creative and logical thinking processes while doing mathematics, making art, and exploring quantitative ideas. On an affective level, we want students, whether they struggle or excel with ease in math, to develop a strong growth mindset so they can develop resilience and perseverance when problem solving, and to experience joy when doing mathematics. By exposing female students to female mathematicians and math-related career options, they will feel encouraged to pursue mathematics at the next level, whether that be senior level high school courses or the post-secondary level.

Project Title: Summer Oshkosh Mathematics Academy

Project Director: Eric Kuennen

Project Summary: This proposal is for a third cycle of funding for the Summer Oshkosh Mathematics Academy, a summer math camp program at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh for talented middle school students. The grant funds will be used to support two four-day camps, in August 2024 and August 2025, each for approximately 32 students entering grades 6-8.

Project Title: Summer Research in Mathematics and Politics

Project Director: Ismar Volic

Project Summary: Summer Research in Mathematics and Politics for High School Students is an online program organized and run by the Institute for Mathematics and Democracy. The students selected for the program will be engaged in learning and doing research on topics in the intersection of mathematics and politics, such as voting theory, gerrymandering, or quantification of power. Projects would also have a data-driven component. During the six weeks of the program, high school students would meet with mentors and with each other regularly for guided research that would culminate in presentations and project reports. The motivation for the program is rooted in the sort of impactful education and research that bridges gaps between disciplines and serves to empower students to become knowledgeable participants and agents of change in the democratic process.

Project Title: An FDU Math Circle to Extend the Radius of Outreach

Project Director: Mark Farag

Project Summary: The Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU) Math Circle is a weekly online exploration of topics in Number Theory and Abstract Algebra by talented and motivated high school students with guidance from a member of the FDU faculty. In exploring these abstract mathematical topics, students learn how to formulate conjectures from well-considered examples, and they gain experience with formulating proofs for or finding counterexamples to those conjectures. Students thereby increase their understanding of what abstract Mathematics is and how it is done. Both organically through the Math Circle sessions and by interactions with guest mathematicians, students are also encouraged to consider the possibility of pursuing Mathematics as a college major and a career path.

Project Title: Stark County Summer Math Academy 2023

Project Director: Aloysius Kasturiarachi

Project Summary: The Stark County Summer 2023 Math Academy is a collaboration between Kent State University at Stark and Stark County high schools. The proposed program is a continuation of the successful inaugural Stark County Summer Math Academy 2022 which was funded by a DMEG grant in 2021. The 1-week summer 2023 academy will provide talented and motivated high school students the opportunity to choose from one of three academies: Advanced Calculus, Data Science, and Explorations in Pure Mathematics. Topics in the Advanced Calculus Academy will include techniques of proof-writing, differential geometry, and 3D printing. The Data Science Academy will focus on introductory coding and modeling of fast changing data. The Explorations in Pure Math Academy will delve into topics in number theory, linear algebra, graph theory, and probability. The purpose of the academy is to attract students from diverse mathematical backgrounds, while being mindful of students from underrepresented minorities, and build their confidence in mathematics. Our overall vision is to be a community of change agents whose collective commitment is to increase diversity and engagement in our discipline with outcomes that align with a growth mindset. Participants will be instructed by three Kent State University faculty members and one Stark County math teacher. Students will be able to explore a variety of topics within their chosen academy through enrichment activities, collaborative work, and a final project.

Project Title: Oglethorpe University Summer Camp in Mathematics: The Mathematics of Secret Messages

Project Director: Mary Garner

Project Summary: The Oglethorpe University Summer Camp in Mathematics: The Mathematics of Secret Messages is for middle school students who are seeking an opportunity to enrich their knowledge of mathematics. The focus of the camp is cryptography. Participants will explore substitution ciphers, public key encryption, and error-correcting codes. In every session of the camp the emphasis will be on engaging the students in activities that require them to code and decode secret messages, thereby experiencing applications of prime numbers, factoring, modular arithmetic, inverse functions, and matrices.

Project Title: Renewal: SMS Math Circles

Project Director: Asia Matthews

Project Summary: In a continued collaboration between Quest University and St. Margaret’s School (both in BC, Canada), we are developing and implementing math workshops and camps for middle-school and high-school students. This will be a year-long mathematics enrichment program for students in grades 5-8 (middle school) and 9-12 (high school) in the 2023-2024 school year. The primary goal of this program is to guide students through the creative side of mathematics. We hope that by exposing female students to female mathematicians and math-related career options, they will feel encouraged to pursue mathematics at the next level. On an affective level, we want students to develop a strong growth mindset and to experience joy when doing mathematics. We will support these students by developing a sense of togetherness and community amongst one another, with their teachers and mentors, and within their families.

Project Title: TexPREP 2023 (at Texas Tech)

Project Director: Jim Brown

Project Summary: TexPREP-Lubbock (Texas Pre-Freshman Engineering Program) is a summer program for sixth through eleventh grade students at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. TexPREP offers a creative and challenging program where students develop lifelong learning skills that enhance their individual success and workforce readiness. They gain the intellectual skills needed to succeed in high school courses, college programs, and careers in engineering, mathematics, and science. They also learn the personal and social skills needed to work cooperatively with others. The classes encourage creativity, curiosity, and a sense of wonder.

Project Title: Math Research Experience for Lowcountry High School Students and Teachers

Project Director: Breeanne Swart

Project Summary: Lowcountry high school students and teachers will join faculty from The Citadel for a week-long camp to solve open problems from The Fibonacci Quarterly and MAA publications. The participants will experience the research process from start to finish including finding open problems, exploring and solving the problems, presenting the results orally, and submitting a written solution to a publication. Daily presentations will provide participants with the opportunity to practice oral presentations skills with a final presentation to parents, teachers, and friends. Throughout the following academic year, participants will have the opportunity to continue to explore problems. The experience will culminate in written and oral presentations at the South Carolina Junior Academy of Sciences annual meeting in March or April.

Project Title: Juneau High School Math Club

Project Director: Andrzej Piotrowski

Project Summary: This project will support weekly meetings of the Math Club for Juneau area high school students (Enigma) with involvement of faculty from the University of Alaska Southeast (UAS). These weekly meetings will focus on preparation for the MAA American Mathematics Competitions. Additionally, funding will support at least one day-long event at UAS where high school students, undergraduate students, teachers, and faculty will work in teams to solve interesting mathematical puzzles.

Project Title: The 13th Math Day at the University of Guam

Project Director: Hideo Nagahashi

Project Summary: The University of Guam, Division of Mathematics and Computer Science organizes Math Day, the annual one day event for high school and middle school students. Math Day cosists of two parts, Quiz Competition and Lecture. In the Quiz Competition, teams from individual schools are asked to solve math problems and trivia questions in front of a live audience present at the event. Teams compete in one of the three categories, Basic Algebra, Pre-Calculus, and Calculus. The second part will be a lecture given by a guest speaker invited from off island. Math Day started in 2008, and has been quite successful encouraging students to study more mathematics continuously.

Project Title: Excellence in Math and Coding Chargers (E=MC2)

Project Director: Yevgeniya Rivers

Project Summary: The Excellence in Math and Coding Chargers (E=MC2) program gives students in grades 7 – 10 an opportunity to learn and apply college-level math in a collaborative and welcoming environment. Embedding topics such as number theory, graph theory, geometry, and statistics into a multi-week project will give students a chance to demonstrate what they have learned to themselves, their peers, and caregivers. Through project-based learning, students will also enhance their oral and written communication skills. Activities and discussions around affective skills such as mindset and self-advocacy will complement their academic experience. Through the facilitation and mentorship of a diverse group of faculty and a TA, the program will help students visualize themselves as future mathematicians.

Project Title: Summer Honors Program Mathematical Connections Class

Project Director: Audrey Malagon

Project Summary: The Summer Honors Program is a two-week accelerated summer school sponsored by Educational Service Unit #11 in Phelps County, Nebraska. This program is designed to expose high ability learners to advanced topics that go beyond the standard curriculum in most rural high schools, guided by instructors who have demonstrated excellence in teaching. Small classes of 10-12 students focus on one subject for the entire two week program, engaged in hands-on active learning and small and large group projects based on student interest and instructor expertise. Evening activities focus on leadership development and community building with like-minded peers. The mathematics class has studied topics including infinity, the mathematics of decisions, probability, and the structure of number systems. At the conclusion of the program, students present some of their work to the community. This grant will support the mathematics class in Summer 2023 to study cryptology guided by Dr. Audrey Malagon from Virginia Wesleyan University.

Project Title: Summer Camp in Board Games and Mathematics

Project Director: Sue Generazzo

Project Summary: Over the last 20 years, there has been a renaissance in board game design resulting in the publication of several complex, systems-based board games, often referred to as Euro-style games. These games are highly strategic and engaging, and underlying many of them is a mathematical structure designed to simulate the characteristics of the desired system. This summer camp in math and board games will introduce high school students to a variety of mathematical concepts, and more generally to the art of mathematical creation, by getting them to analyze and model a select set of Euro-style games. Through a desire to understand who wins and who loses, students will be led to create their own mathematical structures as well as to study and apply existing concepts from probability, graph theory, optimization, and the study of complex systems.

Project Title: An FDU Math Circle to Extend the Radius of Outreach

Project Director: Mark Farag

Project Summary: The Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU) Math Circle is a weekly online exploration of topics in Number Theory and Abstract Algebra by talented and motivated high school students with guidance from a member of the FDU faculty. In exploring these abstract mathematical topics, students will learn how to formulate conjectures from well-considered examples, and they will gain experience with formulating proofs for or finding counterexamples to those conjectures. Students will thereby increase their understanding of what abstract Mathematics is and how it is done. Both organically through the Math Circle sessions and by interactions with guest mathematicians, students will also be encouraged to consider the possibility of pursuing Mathematics as a college major and a career path.

Project Title: FGCU Mathletes for Brigh and Talented Middle School Students

Project Director: Menaka Navaratna

Project Summary: Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU) Mathletes Circle is a non-profit year-round enrichment program for bright and talented middle school students organized by the Department of Mathematics at FGCU in partnership with Immokalee Middle School. The Mathletes Circle consists of Mathletes Summer Camp, Saturday Mathletes Day sessions during regular semesters and AMC-8 Competitions. The ultimate objective of this program is to strengthen middle school students’ interest in mathematics and provide early experience and exposure to STEM related careers with mathematical foundations.

Project Title: BCAMSC High School Math Research

Project Director: John Golden

Project Summary: Battle Creek Are Math and Science Center is a magnet high school, at which Dr. Kelly DeRango, one of the mathematics teachers, has started a bimonthly math seminar and a new mathematics research class. This grant would provide support for consultation to support high school researchers, speakers for the seminar, and materials to expand opportunities for learners.

Project Title: SMS Math Camps

Project Director: Saloni Dholakia

Project Summary:In a collaboration between Quest University and St. Margaret’s School (both in BC, Canada), we will develop and implement math workshops and camps for middle-school and high-school students. This will be a year-long mathematics enrichment program for students in grades 5-8 (middle school) and 9-12 (high school) in the 2022-2023 school year. The primary goal of this program is to guide students through the creative side of mathematics. We hope that by exposing female students to female mathematicians and math-related career options, they will feel encouraged to pursue mathematics at the next level. On an affective level, we want students to develop a strong growth mindset and to experience joy when doing mathematics. We will support these students by developing a sense of togetherness and community amongst one another, with their teachers and mentors, and within their families.

Project Title: Data Science for Decision Makers at the High School Level

Project Director: Brice Merlin Nguelifack

Project Summary: We will offer a high school level data science course through after school activities and/or through a summer camp. The main goal of this proposal is the incorporation of more STEM courses with an emphasis on critical thinking, communication, creativity and problem-solving. A high school level data science curriculum with a project based units that develop an understanding of data analysis, sampling, correlation/causation, bias and uncertainty, probability modeling with data, making and evaluating data based arguments and the ;power of data in today society.

Project Title: Iowa Junior Academy of Math

Project Director: Mohammad Farajzadeh Tehrani

Project Summary: We plan to create an academy for promoting math enrichment activities in Iowa, selecting and training gifted/enthusiastic middle/high school students, exposing them to mathematics research and applications, and further guiding them to pursue mathematics professionally in the future.

Project Title: OMPR Math Summer Camp

Project Director: Luis Caceres

Project Summary: OMPR SUMMER CAMP caters exclusively to Puerto Rico Middle and High School students, in both public and private schools, and is exclusively merit based, with a very rigorous selection process (4 math Olympiads filters). OMPR SUMMER CAMP is a five days’ camp. The main objective of this summer camp is to offer courses and activities that provide enthusiasm in learning math, introduces important concepts, practices strategies for problem solving and develops abilities of those who may become leaders in the next mathematical and scientific generation.

Project Title: Summer Oshkosh Mathematics Academy

Project Director: Eric Kuennen

Project Summary: This project will fund a summer math camp program at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh for talented middle school students. The Summer Oshkosh Mathematics Academy is for students entering grades 6-8 and features student exploration and a creative problem-solving approach to mathematics. Camp participants will see aspects of mathematics and topics that are not typically part of the middle grades curriculum. Our activities will help middle schoolers develop mathematical habits of mind by actually doing mathematics, that is, investigating, experimenting, posing questions, modeling problems, conjecturing, justifying solutions and critiquing the reasoning of others. Our aim is to challenge students while exploring the beauty of mathematics, and provide opportunities to for them to experience mathematics as a creative art, which we hope will encourage them to further their mathematical studies in high school, college, and beyond.

Project Title: Morgantown Math Circle

Project Director: Fang Yang

Project Summary: Morgantown Math Circle (MMC) is an after-school mathematical enrichment program mainly for students from 4-8th grades with extension to 9-12th grades. MMC will establish partnerships with secondary and middle school math teachers to work together to improve the performance of the students in math and science and at the national math competitions such as MATHCOUNTS and to inspire students’ interests and passions in STEM. In addition, the Math Festival at the end of the school year will be hosted to recognize students’ hard work and celebrate their achievements. We will also host a one-week summer camp of various activities including math games for the participants of MMC and students from other areas of WV in the summer of 2023.