STUDENTS – Middle School, High School, College
Write a Mathy POEM
OR
Interview a Math-Woman, write an ESSAY about her
Entries are being accepted now – and up to FEBRUARY 1, 2024.
Information about the MATH-POETRY competition is available here.
Information about the MATH-WOMAN ESSAY CONTEST is available here.
Years ago -- when I was the only woman in the Bloomsburg University mathematics department -- I wrote a poem, "My Dance is Mathematics," about the mathematician Emmy Noether -- and it contained the following lines:
If a woman's dance is mathematics,
She dances alone.
But things are changing! Founded in 1971, AWM (Association for Women in Mathematics) has been actively celebrating the lives of female mathematicians -- and one of AWM's current and far-reaching activities is a STUDENT ESSAY CONTEST for which students -- in middle-school, high-school, and college categories -- are invited to interview a female mathematician and write about her. The essay-submission period is December 1, 2023 - February 1, 2024. Questions may be directed to AWM Essay Contest Organizer, Dr. Johanna Franklin (johanna.n.franklin@hofstra.edu).
Essay Contest -- Sponsored by AWM and Math for America
Each year the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) and Math for America co-sponsor a contest for essays written about the lives and works of contemporary women mathematicians and statisticians in academic, industrial, and government careers.
Each essay should be based primarily on an interview with a woman currently working in or retired from a mathematical sciences career. Participation is open to three groups -- middle school, high school, and undergraduate students. Submissions open December 1 and continue to February 1, 2023. Complete submission information may be found at this link. (AND, 2022 winning essays may be found here.)
I close with a poem about a math-woman -- "San Antonio, January, 1993" -- a poem inspired by my time at a long-ago mathematics conference and included in a chapbook of my mathy poems, My Dance is Mathematics (available at this link).
The Association for Women in Mathematics each year sponsors an Essay Contest in which students (junior high, high school, and college) each interview a math-woman and write about it. Contest winners for this year's contest have been announced and I invite you to go to this link -- to read well-written words about wonderful and inspiring women.
One of the wonderful math-women in my life was Laura Church -- my teacher during my junior and senior years at Indiana Joint High School (in Indiana, PA) -- and here is a stanza that remembers her.
Chalk in hand,
she tosses her book,
strides across the room,
excited by trigonometry,
excited that we,
restless in our rows,
caught some of it.
Flamboyant, silver,
fearless woman.
This stanza is from "The Ones I Best Remember" -- the entire poem is found here. More "girls and math" poems are at this link -- and the curious reader may browse or use this blog's SEARCH feature to find lots more!
WRITING deepens UNDERSTANDING!
For the reason above -- and for the possibility of winning recognition and prizes -- please consider the following contests.
The NYTimes has announced its 3rd annual STEM Writing Contest -- information is found here and 500-word submissions are invited during the period Feb 2-March 9, 2022.
To increase awareness of women’s ongoing contributions to mathematics, the Association for Women in Mathematics and Math for America are cosponsoring an essay contest for biographies based on interviews of math-women working in or retired from mathematical careers. The contest is open to students in Grades 6–8, Grades 9–12, and Undergraduate. For more information, please visit the contest webpage or contact the organizer, Dr. Johanna Franklin, at johanna.n.franklin (at) hofstra.edu. The submission deadline is February 1, 2022.Amalie "Emmy" Noether (1885-1932) is one of the outstanding mathematicians of all-time -- and yet, during her lifetime she got very little of the recognition that she deserved.
Consider these lines:
Today history books proclaim that Noether
is the greatest mathematician
her sex has produced. They say she was good --
for a woman. a stanza from my poem "My Dance is Mathematics"
In the past, people both inside and outside of mathematics have discriminated against women and minorities -- but the Association for Women in Mathematics -- AWM -- works to change that. One of their activities to increase awareness of math-woman and their achievements is an annual essay contest.
To increase awareness of women’s ongoing contributions to mathematics, the Association for Women in Mathematics and Math for America are cosponsoring an essay contest for biographies based on interviews of women working in or retired from mathematical careers. The contest is open to students in Grades 6–8, Grades 9–12, and Undergraduate. For more information, contact the organizer, Dr. Johanna Franklin, at johanna.n.franklin@hofstra.edu or see the contest webpage at
https://awm-math.org/awards/student-essay-contest/. The deadline is February 1, 2022.
This message is a follow-up to a posting made on October 12 -- an announcement of the Student Essay Contest sponsored by the Association for Women in Mathematics and (as I have newly learned today) Math for America.
Students in three categories -- middle school, high school, and undergraduate -- are invited to interview a math-woman and to write and submit a biographical essay that celebrates that woman. The submission period for essays opened yesterday (12/1/2020) and continues until February 1, 2021. Full details are available at this link.
For more, here is a link to the results of a blog search using "women" and "mathematics".
Recently (10/10/2020), NPR had an interview with former teachers of Louisville shooting victim Breonna Taylor -- an interview that celebrated her love of and talent for mathematics. Read about it here. I write to applaud this celebration AND to encourage increased recognition of math-women while they are alive.
A wonderful way to celebrate math-women is the annual essay contest sponsored by the Association for Women in Mathematics -- open to students from middle school to college; contest information is available here. Interviews may be conducted now; essay submission begins December 1.
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| A repeat from this posting back in 2010 |
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