Celebrating Math and Science at UBC Faculty of Education
The Physics Room was very busy during the day, as well as our mathematics, biology, chemistry and earth science labs.
Yesterday, on October 19th, 2019 we hosted our 9th Family Math and Science Day. We had more than 600 guests and almost 150 volunteers. We started this event in 2010 and we were not sure how many people would be on board. I was lucky that my colleague – a math educator Dr. Cynthia Nicol and our Education Library Librarian – Jo-Anne Naslund were immediately on board. Most importantly, my husband – a Physics Professor – Dr. Valery Milner was ready to help me out with everything from science demonstrations to the organization of the event and of course with the clean up. We were also lucky to get support from our Faculty and our colleagues.
The first event drew about 200 guests and about 80 volunteers. And it was a good start. Next year it was much easier to attract the families, as the families who attended our first event and enjoyed it told their friends and the event has become a part of the science methods courses for future teachers. So in a few years, it has become an amazing tradition of bringing mathematics and science to the general public and inspiring our future elementary and secondary teachers to engage students and their families in science and mathematics.
The kids and their parents enjoyed biology, chemistry and earth science exhibits very much.
This event also shows that through collaboration you can achieve much more than any one of us can do alone. This year, this was especially clear when we had so many students, staff and faculty came to participate. We also had a lot of secondary science teachers volunteers who came to engage younger students and their families in science. We had many elementary teacher-candidates participate this year as well. Thanks to all of them we were able to explore STEM connection to music, arts and many other exciting fields. As always we had Yvonne Dawydiak and Wes Wong bringing exciting hands-on activities for the students. This year we also had Pacific Museum of Earth with us, as well as Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences, which was very exciting.
We also had local mathematics and science organizations such as The Spirit of Math, Math Potential, and Seaquaria engaged. This was especially valuable for the parents, who are looking for extra curricular opportunities for their children.
For more pictures from the day click here.
For some of the experiments from the event click here.
For our research on the topic, clear here:
Milner-Bolotin, M., & Marotto, C. C. F. (2018). Examination of parental engagement in children’s STEM education. Part I: Meta-analysis of the Literature. LUMAT: International Journal on Math, Science and Technology Education, 6(1), 41-59. doi:https://doi.org/10.31129/LUMAT.6.1.292
Marotto, C. C. F., & Milner-Bolotin, M. (2018). Examination of parental engagement in children’s STEM education. Part II: Parental attitudes and motivation. LUMAT: International Journal on Math, Science and Technology Education, 6(1), 60-86. doi:https://doi.org/10.31129/LUMAT.6.1.293
Milner-Bolotin, M., & Milner, V. (2017). Family Mathematics and Science Day at UBC Faculty of Education. Physics in Canada, 73(3), 130-132.