Pre-registration for QED, Chicago’s Youth Math Symposium, is open until November 12th. As I met with parents at each of our five math circle sites these past two weeks I encouraged them to get their kids to give math research a try.
The main questions is–how do you get started? While our enrollment in math circles topped 400 for the first time last year, fewer than 10% of those participating submitted an entry to QED in 2015.
With this in mind, we are officially launching our QED Advisor Program. Graduate students in mathematics from UIC, UChicago, and DePaul along with teachers in Chicago Public Schools have volunteered to serve. They will help kids identify good questions for exploration, and then provide feedback after some progress has been made.
The chief purpose here is to help kids just get started! If you are interested, write qed@mathcirclesofchicago.org and I’ll connect you to your advisor. Keep in mind that the support is limited, ideally an exchange of two or three emails along with one phone call. We have a finite number of Advisors, so we’ll process requests on a first come, first serve basis. Again, we do have classroom teachers who provide support–if your school has a QED Advisor teacher, we will connect you with them!
And one reminder–along with the satisfaction of doing your own research, another incentive to attend this year’s QED is our keynote speaker Eugenia Cheng, mathematician, musician, chef, and recent guest on Stephen Colbert’s late night show.
Why wait? Write qed@mathcirclesofchicago.org today!