Doing the Math: Barnard Gives Young Girls the Edge
 On April 7, 2006, one hundred eager 5th, 8th and 9th grade public school students and their teachers took over Barnard Hall with a singular goal: to explore math. But theirs was no ordinary exploration. These hundred girls - chosen from more than 600 applicants from 109 schools all over New York - were participants in the first Sonia Kovalevsky Day at the College. Whether the focus was Rubik's cubes, Copernicus, the math of knitting, sentence machines or group problem-solving, these budding young mathematicians reveled in a female, math-friendly, collaborative environment.
"We're opening their eyes to the many possibilities in math," says event co-organizer and Barnard math professor Cathy O'Neil. "The whole day is built around getting and keeping them actively engaged in mathematical thinking. Also, they met a fantastic group of scientists - engaging, inspiring and successful professional women who love math."
Among these women were Barnard physics professor Janna Levin ('88) who said that students asked so many excellent questions that "we never got past my first few slides, and had a fascinating discussion about the fate of the cosmos, and the search for our place in the universe." Math graduate students Lillian Carrasquillo and Sonja Mapes also led workshops on, respectively, geometry in four dimensions, and axioms of number systems, Both also shared their personal stories about how they got hooked on math as young girls.
The day was also structured to give teachers valuable knowledge. In separate workshops, teachers learned classroom strategies that will that encourage, and challenge their students - particularly girls - to succeed in math. Barnard psychology professor Cathy Good led a teacher workshop on 'stereotype threat,' including new research on how negative stereotypes affect student performance, particularly in math and science. O'Neil and co-organizer Kiri Soares are especially interested in professional development for math teachers. This fall Soares will serve as assistant principal for a new public school for girls that is focused on math and science.
Sonia Kovalevsky Math Days, sponsored each year at colleges around the country by the Association for Women in Mathematics, http://www.awm-math.org/kovalevsky.html . They are held in honor of the extraordinary 19 th century Russian woman who, despite her mathematical brilliance, was not even allowed to attend lectures. Kovalevsky persevered, and despite having never matriculated, earned a PhD in 1874. Eventually her work was recognized: nearly a hundred years after her death, a Moon crater was named for her. For more information please go to: http://scidiv.bcc.ctc.edu/Math/Kovalevsky.html .
5.09.06
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