Serving Underserved Students

 

Motivated by a talk on math circles at the 2011 Mathematical Field of Dreams conference in Arizona, I started the Newark Area Math Circle in Newark, New Jersey. I wanted to provide an environment to underserved students who are interested in mathematics to convene and solve problems. We opened with 22 middle school and high school students in February 2012.

Math circles have gained popularity in the United States over the last decade or so. It is an informal gathering of primary or secondary schools students, usually led by a mathematician to discuss, solve, or pose problems in advanced mathematics. It is an outreach activity by mathematicians to generate enthusiasm and excitement in youth about mathematics. Problems emanate from fields such as number theory, combinatorics, geometry, probability, group theory, etc. This spring semester, our math circle solved problems using linear diophantine equations, the Euclidean algorithm, Pascal’s Triangle, triangular numbers, the Principle of Inclusion-Exclusion, modular arithmetic, etc. In our last session this spring semester, Newark Area Math Circle students investigated the Fibonacci sequence, and learned fractals.

The Newark Area Math Circle holds its classes at Rutgers University-Newark on Saturdays in the spring and fall semesters from 9:30am to 12:30 pm. We currently have a group of 40 students from 18 schools in New Jersey.  One of our students is home-schooled. Also, some students drive about one hour each way to come to class. Because of our location in Newark, our math circle has 80 percent of its students from underrepresented minority groups. We have 2 Caucasian students and 6 Asian students.

In addition to our spring and fall classes, we have a very active summer program. We hold a 20-day summer camp, 4 days per week, 3 hours per day. We offer our students a course in Number Theory and Cryptography. Last year, 36 students participated in the camp, free of charge.  This year, due to scarcity of funds, the camp may not be free to every student.

The Newark Area Math Circle has been able to offer its programs due to small grants and volunteerism. So far, our programs are mainly supported by two mini grants from MSRIand donations from parents.  Our programs are also made possible by the volunteerism of our instructional staff comprised of mathematics faculty members from Kean University and Rutgers University-Newark.

To finish, I would like to highlight a couple more things. This year, for their first time, our students participated in American Mathematics Competitions, namely the AMC 8 and the AMC 10. The students were thrilled about participating, and were very excited on their performance on the contests. Also, this year, we were able to partner with a middle school in Newark. Their students do math circle activities on weekdays at their local school, and they join our classes on Saturdays. We are in the process of  replicating this to more schools in the near future so that we can bring more underserved students into our math circle to enjoy mathematics.

For more information on math circles, please visit www.newarkareamathcircle.org and www.mathcircles.org.