Math (Un)Fair

It was a great experience going to the Math (Un)Fair for our last class! I was sad that my doctor's appointment ran long and I had to miss the beginning of it, but I felt I got to see the majority of the student's projects in the time that I had. It was interesting to see the differences in the students' levels of understanding of the topic. While many of the projects were quite similar, once you went up to talk to the kids it became clear that some had a firm grasp on the concept of theoretical and experimental probability, whereas some students were still developing their understanding. I think the fair could have been improved by loosening the requirements to allow for a wider variety of projects - this would allow the students to learn from each other, as many of them would have done projects on different topics.

I think that math fairs like this are a great idea, and I would love to do something similar with my students. It's interesting to imagine what a math fair might look like with older mathematics students - maybe Grade 11 or Grade 12. Probability lends itself well to this sort of thing, as there can be an "experiment" or "game" for people to take part in as the walk through the fair. So I could see this working well with grade 10-12 Probability, Statistics or Combinatorics. But I could also imagine a several different topics that would work well for math fairs. It could fit in very well on a unit on deductive logic, with students creating their own logic puzzles or games for participants to take part in. I could also imagine a fair where each student presents on a topic of their own interest - maybe explaining a theorem in depth, or a mathematical artifact they'd researched, or some application of mathematics.

Math Fairs seem like a great way to get out of the classroom and engage with mathematics, and I would love to do something similar with my students if I have the chance.