8th Family Mathematics and Science Day
Visitors young and older were fascinated by demonstrations and experiments they participated in during the day! (Photo credit Marina Milner-Bolotin).
Prof. Valery Milner (Department of Physics and Astronomy) shows families how an infrared camera works. Photo credit: Paul Joseph/UBC Brand and Marketing.
For more photos click here.
On Saturday, November 3rd, 2018, we had an amazing 8th Family Math and Science Day. My Mathematics Education colleague Dr. Cynthia Nicol and founded the event in 2010 and it is going strong!Despite the weather, we had almost 400 guests, more than 130 volunteers and lots and lots of fun. This event is becoming a feature in our Faculty and our teacher-candidates are becoming very comfortable leading mathematics and science outreach events. In addition, the kids in the community are waiting for it. We had a few innovations this year: University Transition School students took part in the event and it was fantastic. We had a Virtual Reality exploration room. We had a lot of innovative stations created by teacher-candidates, faculty and staff. We know that our teacher-candidates will be using these ideas during the practicum.
This year we have been supported by the UBC Faculty of Education and Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy, UBC Teacher Education office and UBC Professional Development and Community Engagement Unit, David F. Robitaille Mathematics and Science Education Endowed Chair, Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences, and UBC Department of Physics and Astronomy, UBC Faculty of Science. We are grateful to our sponsors.
And here is some feedback from the families who attended the event this year:
Dear Marina,
I would like to thank you for organizing such a great outreach program. I am a grade three student and I love math and science. I really enjoyed the UBC math and science program this year and last year as well. Next year, could you have it a little bit longer and maybe have it two or three times a year? It was really good and I enjoyed it but it was too short! Thank you!
Sincerely, A.
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Dear Dr. Milner-Bolotin,
This event was fantastic! Well organized, amazing volunteers, and so many activities and experiments to explore. You brought Science world to UBC with the great advantage of eager volunteer students giving a personal, one on one experience for each child. Send your team a big thank you!
B., R., R. and N. K.
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Hi Marina,
Just wanted to say how impressed I was with all the volunteers that you had manning the stations this year! They were so enthusiastic and knowledgeable! I was also amazed by the high school volunteers–they were able to interact with my young kids so well! Thank you for hosting this event every year–I’m sure it’s a HUGE amount of work! Our homeschooling community appreciates this and looks forward to it every year!
Warmly, Y.
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Marina, Volunteers and Team,
A huge and sincere thanks to all of you for organizing yesterday’s event. It was our first time and our family enjoyed all the hands on discoveries. My 6 3/4 year old son’s favourite was the circuit made with play dough and watching the led light come on. My 9 year old daughter like making the flowers and touching the alive and non alive animals. They also like playing the math games. Thank you.
The A-D Family
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Hi Marina,
Thank you very much for today and all your efforts to arrange this event which I know how much time and work was needed to be done for all. This event is a unique and comprehensive strategy, which engage everybody from kindergarten to parents and adults. Everyone was enjoying, learning and engaging with science and math.
Thank you and have a great weekend.
S.
More photos can be found here.