Mathematician Project

A few years ago, I came across the blog post, The Mathematicians Project: Mathematicians Are Not Just White Dudes, and I was inspired. 

I took this idea and challenged my math peers at the high school I teach at to try and incorporate more mathematicians in their daily lessons.

I then created a project for my classroom based on this blog post. I want to share with you my version of the project as well as examples from a student (with permission) during 2020 quarantine.

Feel free to take use as is or change for how you need it. I would love to see how you adapt it for your classrooms as well as any student examples.

When I first did this project the kids clamored to be the first to get the "big names" (Einstein, Euler, Turing) although I did notice my students of color took more time to find mathematicians like them.

I had Brahmagupta and Mary Jackson chosen that first year. I also noticed the ladies in my class mostly chose women (Emilie du Chalet, Hypatia, Sally Ride). I had hoped this would be the case and yet I was still pleasantly surprised to see it play out.

In addition to getting the students to seeing and thinking about Mathematicians from all walks of life, I, also, was developing a library for myself and my colleagues to use of presentations on Mathematicians and decorations for my class. I have set up a shared folder for my colleagues to draw from the student work to use in their classes.

When COVID hit in 2020 and also coincided with the greater awareness of social injustice in our country, I knew I had to use this project to end the school year. Again, I was impressed by the work the students did as well as the mathematicians they chose. More so than ever the mathematicians that they chose represented a wide range of countries and backgrounds. There wasn't a rush to pick the well known Euro mathematicians. Instead the students thoughtfully looked for BIPOC mathematicians and women. I also had students who looked for mathematicians that they could relate to in the LGBTQ+ community. I was more inspired than ever to renew my initiative to show that #mathematicianslooklikeallofus.

Here is a student example. Sarah is a student at BYU now. She chose to present on Mary Somerville and she dressed up for her presentation.

If you adapt or use the Mathematician Project in your class I would love to hear how it went!