Year 10 Pupils Enjoy Warwick University‘s Maths And Beyond Workshop

Focusing on engaging and practical applications of Maths the workshop offered the Year 10 pupils the opportunity to appreciate how Maths could apply in the real world.  The day was all about inspiring pupils to continue with their study of Maths at A-level and beyond.

Year 10 pupil, Isabel Nelson summarised the day:

We headed to the Mathematics Institute at the University of Warwick, where we were split into two groups.  After a welcome by the organiser, we paired off with another school.  Our group – group C – began with a session called ‘Introduction to Game Theory’, it started with mind games that we had to try to win and then looked in depth at logical ways you could win every time. It included solutions to commonly known problems such as the Prisoner’s Dilemma.

Our next workshop was on the topic of SynBio: an introduction and ethical discussion on synthetic biology. It considered the futuristic idea of modifying and tampering with DNA in animals and plants to help with real life situations. This could include anything from bringing back the woolly mammoth to creating glow-in-the-dark plants to replace streetlights. We had some interesting ethical discussions.

Our final workshop took place after lunch and was on Japanese grid puzzles and we spent the session learning how to solve a nonogram – similar to Sudoku but more time consuming and puzzling!

Princethorpe’s second group took part in a workshop called ‘Magical Maths’ and learnt magic tricks that use complex Maths. This included a ‘mind reading’ trick, Carys Burchell had to think of one of the shapes shown on the board and say it out loud. A video then played, giving the same shape that she had chosen. Carys was successful with this magical mind reading trick several times. The group learnt three more Maths-involved magic tricks in an interesting session.

Overall, the whole day was a fun and interactive experience that we all thoroughly enjoyed.