A new six week programme which encourages children to engage with the subject in an interactive and entertaining manner is kicking off today with an onsite session at the EMEA headquarters in Cork.
Trend Micro, a global leader in security software, are helping primary school children from Cork to bring real-world skills into the classroom as part of the Sense About Maths (SAM) programme.
The initiative, which runs as part of the school day or as an after-school endeavour, encourages an alternative perspective on mathematics, thereby stimulating an interest in subjects outside of the curriculum, which include Sets, Sequences and Tetris.
With the help of a mentor from the Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths sector (STEM), students will be given an alternative insight into the subject which may play a role in how they view the subject as well as their stance on prospective career paths.
Commenting on the motivation behind the programme, William Dalton, SAM Mentor and Director of Technology at Trend Micro, said: “SAM is very much a STEM enablement program targeted at national school level bringing a fun, collaborative and alternative maths teaching program which is delivered by industry professionals with a view to changing young children’s view on maths and influencing future career choices.”
Aimed at 5th and 6th class students, the children were given talks on a variety of subjects such as internet safety, cybercrime and bio-coderdojo.
Eager to highlight the advantages of such a programme, Mr. Dalton continued: “The onsite day enriched kids on the relevancy of maths in everyday life and included a cryptography session by John Corkish to show how websites are secured, how maths is used in DNA Extraction through simple experiments to extract DNA from bananas as well as showing how maths is used for virtual imagery with Oculus Rift.”
The new 2014 Project Maths curriculum, which was initiated to incorporate practical problems into the Junior Cert cycle, is complimented by the SAM programme.
