Math Circles are communities of students of all ages who are enjoy exploring mathematics and who enjoy mathematical problem solving. Meetings are lively, interactive, and often ‘funstrating’: challenging, but in a highly rewarding way. Students encounter mathematical ideas not commonly seen in the usual school curriculum and get to play with them. The focus is on mathematical discovery, not learning particular content. At the end of a session, students will have learned something about a new topic, practiced thinking mathematically, and still have unsolved questions.
Everyone is welcome at a math circle, whatever their mathematical background, and everyone can benefit from a chance to explore mathematical ideas in a friendly environment. However, please be aware that a math circle is not aimed at reviewing the usual school curriculum and its not aimed at preparing for math contests, although we are working on similar skills.
Activities
Lessons are centered around students working in groups on solving problems. Here are a few sample activities that we have used in the past:
- Partitions (arithmetic and number theory)
- Island of Knights and Liars (logic and puzzles)
- Monrian Art Puzzles (geometry and games)
You can also see previous semester’s activities on the calendar, or look at this archive of activities from the Math Circles Network which we are part of.
Volunteering
If you’re thinking about volunteering, just drop by one of our sessions and participate. Students are usually working in small groups and then sharing what they’ve discovered, so you can just join a group and start thinking about math together. Once you want to be a regular volunteer, we’re looking for:
- volunteers to regularly attend sessions and work with students. This just requires briefly looking at the activities ahead of time and showing up. An undergraduate student might do this with the main math circle, or a high school student might do this with the elementary circle.
- volunteers to develop and lead sessions. This requires some familiarity with the format (i.e. attending a few sessions first) and some mathematical background. While this may be relatively easy for a graduate student in mathematics, we can help undergraduate or even high school students do so.
- volunteers for special events, like outreach at local schools and the UF Math Festival.
If you have questions, please contact us at circle@math.ufl.edu.