Fun Math For Girls
By Natalie Shell
Consider this school-themed math problem:
10 students are at their school dance. If each student dances with each other student once, how many combinations are there? Now, if everyone wants to dance with the popular girl twice (note that this girl is popular because of her dazzling intellect), how many more combinations will there be? Now, if another girl is smelly and sweaty (because she just came from sports practice), so only two kids will dance with her, how many fewer dances will there be?
Now consider this seasonal math question:
At dawn on December 1st, Olaf the snowman is 5 feet and 4 inches tall (this is his actual height, confirmed by Disney). Every day, Olaf melts a little, decreasing his height by 4 inches. Every night Elsa rebuilds him a little, increasing his height by 2 inches. On what day will Olaf disappear?
These (hopefully) entertaining problems are part of my “Fun Math” initiative, a program designed to pique girls’ interest in math at my all-girls school.
As a girl, I have always been aware of many subtle biases that steer women away from math and sciences. When I was 5 years old, I was already an enthusiastic mathematician. I would frequently borrow math workbooks from my local library, which were adorned with characters like Dora the Explorer. That made sense to me since math was an exploration! But by the time I was 8, Dora had largely been replaced by Spider-man and other male superheroes, leaving me to wonder “When did math become a boys' subject?” Although Spider-man isn’t necessarily ‘just for boys,’ 8-year-old me felt uncomfortable that there was a lack of female representation even in math workbooks!
Studies have shown that girls are innately equally as talented in math as boys, and the gender gap in STEM actually comes from society’s different treatment of girls and boys. Although this may be somewhat of a generalization, I have found that the boys I know are more often encouraged to explore and take risks, particularly in fields like math and science. On the other hand, as stated by TED speaker Reshma Saujani, girls’ are taught to be careful and perfect, leading to a “bravery deficit,” which is why girls are afraid to enter STEM. I have found this to be true, especially since some of the most central aspects of STEM are experimentation, ‘right and wrong answers,’ and learning through making mistakes. Hence, girls tend to end up focusing on less quantitative fields such as writing and art. Whatever the reason, I encounter fewer and fewer girls in math and STEM, particularly at the highest levels. For example, out of 4,124 AIME qualifiers this year, only 706 (17%) were female. However, interestingly enough, while the AMC’s highest-achieving male students came from a variety of backgrounds, 50% of the AMC’s top-scoring girls came from a set of 20 elite schools. (This information is from an article written by Glenn Ellison and Ashley Swanson in the Journal of Economic Perspectives.) In other words, girls can thrive in STEM given an encouraging environment and other talented female students to work with and learn from. These 20 elite schools likely provided that for their girls, and I have always hoped to be able to be part of a community that does the same.
As a passionate math enthusiast and feminist, I started advocating for girls in math in 7th grade by petitioning for my all-girls school to start participating in math competitions, including AMC8 and the MATHCOUNTS competition series. This way, our girls would have more opportunities to develop an interest in STEM. For MathCounts, I advocated for my classmates to participate in the event and managed to recruit 4 girls that year. To my delight, this number grew to 22 girls the following year due to our initial success in the competition. In both years, I hosted multiple practices at my house to promote problem-solving skills and teamwork. I am continuing to help coach the team in high school. Though I am no longer eligible to compete myself, it has still been extremely rewarding seeing an increasing number of girls from my school qualifying for the Mathcounts States competition for the past 4 years. Even more fulfilling was being able to act as a role model and working with these girls: encouraging them to take risks, build confidence, learn and improve their skills and work as a team.
I also had a similar experience with AMC 8. My school had historically participated in the AMC 8 competition but had gone on hiatus for 7 years before I convinced the school to participate in more STEM events. Although I had participated in the AMC 8 since fifth grade through nearby math circles, I loved solving the AMC’s fascinating and challenging problems, and I wanted to share the fun with my classmates.
My middle school principal supported my initiative (just like she did with MATHCOUNTS) and the top math students have competed every year ever since. It was really rewarding to see our school’s students achieve recognition on the Achievement Roll, Honor Roll, and even Distinguished Honor Roll, and many girls have told me that they were pleasantly surprised by their own ability and achievements. Performing well on a national-level math competition like the AMC series can really boost girls’ confidence and encourage them to pursue STEM.
In short, my school’s middle and high school math teams were providing increasing opportunities for girls who already had an interest in math, but I soon realized that this hardly affected the majority of the girls, who were not involved with the math team. I met with my high school’s principal, Mr. Sullivan, to discuss ideas on how to make math more appealing for ALL students. He was extremely supportive and enthusiastic, and we laid out the framework for the “Fun Math” initiative, talking through all of the logistics. Once every other week, I would present a silly and fun math question at our high school’s weekly assembly. Many of the questions were school focused - we had questions about school dances, calculating grades, and even ways to navigate around the school without getting dress-coded for being out of uniform!
For the holidays, I would switch up the themes of the questions, which ranged from Thanksgiving dinner selection to questions about Disney characters. The fun math questions also touched on a wide range of math concepts, from algebra and number theory to combinatorics and logic, but I always made sure the questions were relevant, relatable, and fun. Prizes included chocolates, school T-shirts, and even no uniform day. The winners were randomly picked out of the girls who had answered the questions correctly, and they were always acknowledged in front of the entire school at assembly.
The girls in my school enjoyed the fun questions and exciting prizes, as well as the variety of the fun math questions. The girls’ responses to Fun Math has also been extremely gratifying - I have seen students work on the questions in the morning, between classes, during lunch, and even working together with friends to come up with the right answer. Some girls would even enthusiastically offer ideas for future fun math questions.
All in all, the Fun Math initiative was a resounding success. We had more than a quarter of the student body participate in the competition at some point. But most importantly, these participants came from every grade and had a variety of ability levels and amount of experience in math. It has been great to be able to encourage so many more girls to genuinely enjoy working on interesting math problems.
In future years, I would love to expand the scope of the Fun Math questions from my school to other schools locally and farther away, to encourage a larger community of girls to develop a love of math.
A possible next step for my Fun Math initiative is to recruit fun math champions at every school, initiating similar programs to mine. I hope to have these fun math champions contributing in whichever way possible; presenting fun questions onstage at assemblies, or even just filming videos of the question or emailing out a ‘Fun Math’ survey with the questions. There are many ways to adapt the program to fit the style and each advocate for girls’ participation in math. For any girl who is interested in participating, you can find some of my past fun math questions on my website “MathandAI4Girls.org,” and you are very welcome to use them or adjust them to suit your school to make the questions more fun. You can also write to me at mathandaiforgirls@yahoo.com and share your ideas for fun math questions and ask any questions you might have about the Fun Math Initiative. Together, we can create more opportunities and resources for a large community of girls, helping encourage female participation in STEM one school at a time!
And now I’ll leave you with one last quarantine-themed fun question.
Your dog begins barking at 9:30, when 1st period starts, and continues to bark once every 45 minutes. Your cat begins meowing at 10:00 and continues to meow once every 30 minutes. Assuming each class is 40 minutes, during which class period will the cat meow and the dog bark at the exact same time (for the first time)?
Part 2: Your dog has problems - he also likes to bite. If he has a 40% chance of biting you during each class, during how many of your five classes do you think he will bite you?
PS - answers to the math problems were:
School dance
45 total combinations
9 more dances
7 fewer dances
Olaf the snowman
December 31
Noisy pets
3rd Period
2 classes