Maths is all around us. We use it when cooking the dinner, playing sport, or deciding whether to go for that impulse purchase. It shapes our society in our voting systems and the way we use data. The daily reports of Covid have made many of us all too aware of graphs, statistics, and percentages.
We take all this for granted yet will still say we have no head for maths. This is the belief that Maths Week Scotland is striving to overturn.
Maths Week Scotland, which runs until Sunday, encourages schools to make their own activities that have numbers at their heart but also draw across the curriculum to demonstrate that mathematics is not a scary and obtuse subject, but rather a tool to make sense of the world.
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Maths Week Scotland grew from the recommendations of the Making Maths Count advisory group. Now in its fourth year, its aim is to transform Scotland into a maths-positive nation through raising the profile of maths and encouraging enthusiasm for maths.
This annual week of maths celebration was always to be a combination of online and hands-on experiences but this year, as teachers welcome students back to school after such a long break and Covid restrictions still hold sway, it feels more important than ever that the events we have planned can still take place no matter what.
Teachers have risen to the challenge by focusing their school activities on the great outdoors. More than 100 schools and learning institutions have received small grants to develop projects and many have adapted maths learning into their local environment. Maths trails, take-home kits and resource packs mean that blended learning, home learning or socially distanced learning can all be accommodated within the programme.
Online opportunities also benefit from enthusiastic support from celebrities across numerous fields. What they have in common is a love of mathematics and the ability to explain its connection to art, sport and science among other areas. This year, Maths Week Scotland is supported by celebrities such as Olympian and maths graduate, Eilish McColgan; mathematics professor and broadcaster Hannah Fry; author Marcus de Sautoy; and comics illustrator Rossie Stone.
Skills Academy Scotland has also created outdoor maths packs for over 170 primary schools in the Highlands region. The key is that the resources and online sessions created during this week become part of an ongoing programme of maths activities.
Just as puppies are not just for Christmas, maths is for life - not just for Maths Week.
Katie Oldfield is the Maths Week Scotland coordinator. Click here to find out more about Maths Week Scotland events
