Report of the 2000 UNB - ESSO Math Camp

Report of the 2000 UNB - ESSO Math Camp

The 2000 UNB - ESSO Math Camp The first (and we expect annual) UNB - ESSO Math Camp was held from May 12 to May 14, 2000. Sixteen students from twelve different schools attended the Camp, which was held on the Fredericton Campus of the University of New Brunswick. A list of the students is attached. The Camp was organized by Barry Monson and Daryl Tingley from the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, UNB Fredericton. The Canadian Mathematical Society began actively promoting math camps about four years ago. Initially there was one camp. Since 1999 the Imperial Oil Charitable Foundation has made annual donations to the CMS to fund mathematics camps. In 1999 there were 3 camps. In the year 2000 9 camps will run. (UNB s was the first of the year.) The camps vary considerably in size and length, but they have one thing in common: Mathematics! UNB s Math Camp began on the day that the New Brunswick Mathematics Competition, for grades 7, 8, and 9 was held. (The NB Mathematics Competition is organized jointly by the Department of Mathematics and Statistics of UNB and the Faculty of Science and the School of Engineering of l Université de Moncton.) Since the results of the Competition were used in choosing the students to invite to the Camp, the Camp nicely complements the Competition. We hope that when the Camp was announced at the Competition prize ceremonies, students were encouraged to work hard to win the opportunity to attend. The camp was a great success! The students enjoyed the organized mathematical activities, the free time (when they usually played games), and the food for which Beaver Foods get our thanks. (Evaluation forms are available from D. Tingley.) The only criticism was that there were just too many (long) lectures. That may be true: we worked them very hard. Nonetheless, as the evaluation forms show, the students enjoyed themselves. Attached is a copy of the program, which shows the great variety of activities. On May 16, the Fredericton Gleaner ran a nice article about the Camp. (A copy is attached. Unfortunately, they misspelled Ryan Kabir s name.) Such publicity is surely good both for mathematics and the University. Invitations To begin we selected students for the camp using the results from the NB Mathematics Contests (grades 7 to 9). We looked for students who had done well in more than one contest. Invitations were sent on February 15th to nineteen students in Grades 10 and 11. Thirteen of these accepted although, two days before the camp was to begin, one dropped out. About 6 grade 12 students were then approached, all of whom declined our invitation. (We learned there were a number of other events that weekend that attracted top students, particularly those in Grade 12.) We then asked several teachers to select a few more students, giving a total of 16. 1

The process was somewhat frustrating. Responses to our invitations were slow in being returned. In many cases we called the schools, and applied some pressure. All this took time. Assuming the camp runs again next year, we will invite more students initially and start calling the schools and students earlier. Apart from grade 12 students, the final acceptance rate was quite good, especially when it is remembered that the students (with one exception) had no idea what to expect from a Math Camp; indeed they had never heard of such a thing. Funding Funding for the Camp was provided by the Canadian Math Society, through a grant from the Imperial Oil Charitable Foundation, The University of New Brunswick and the Province of New Brunswick (Dept of Education). A financial statement is attached. For two reasons, we came in well under budget. First, we had allowed for 20 students. In the end we had only 16, which resulted in a savings of about $600. The second reason was travel. The students traveled to the Camp with students from their school, or a nearby school, who were participating in the UNB Mathematics Contest. It was our intent to pay for those outside the Fredericton area to return home by SMT bus. Although 11 students qualified, only 2 of them took the bus. Furthermore, both went to Saint John, the closest of the destinations. (The rest were picked up by parents.) Future Camps The Camp was such a success that it must be run again. The model used this year was very successful, and some minor changes will make it even better next year. We will consider expanding it slightly. Because parents seem so willing to pick up the students, we will also consider running it until the middle of Sunday afternoon. (The 11:00 am finishing time was thought necessary, since buses leave for various parts of the province between 11:15 and 11:30 am) Thanks The success of the camp was due, to a great extent, to our excellent speakers: Yuly Billig, Bill Chernoff, Dan Kucerovsky, Barry Monson, Roman Mureika, Vlad Tasić. Organizing a camp takes a lot of work behind the scenes as well. Thanks go to Linda Guthrie, Janice Phillips and Eleanor Perrin from the UNB Math-Stats departmental office; to Caroline Jones who stayed in the residence with the students; to Caroline Baskerville from the CMS Executive office; to Bob Collette who kept us all well fed; to Graham Wright (Executive Director of the CMS), for arranging funding from The Imperial Oil Charitable Foundation and persuading UNB that they should run the Camp; and to Jon Thompson (Chair, UNB Math-Stats dept) and Al Sharp (Dean, UNB Faculty of Science) for arranging funding from the University and NB provincial government. Daryl Tingley 2

Students who participated in the 2000 UNB - ESSO Math Camp: GRADE 10 Jordan Dubois Daniel Fletcher Shivani Gautam Jordan Pinder Andrew Read Mike Williams Leo Hayes High School Harvey High School Harrison Trimble High School Miramichi Valley High School Kennebecasis Valley High School GRADE 11 Stephanie Bone Ben Embly Dave Fanning Ryan Kabir Fei Liu Brent McCumber Chris McKnight Bane Mijatović Bruce Robinson Dragon Veslinović St. Stephen High School Rothesay High School Sir James Dunn Academy Saint John High School Hampton High School Moncton High School 3

UNB ESSO MATH CAMP MAY 12-14, 2000 PROGRAM FRIDAY, MAY 12 10:00-11:00 - Students assemble in Mathematics Department, Tilley Hall, Room T406. 11:00 - Students begin working on some neat problems. T303 12:00 - Lunch with the New Brunswick Mathematics Competition contestants. McConnell Hall 1:00 - Students attend the exhibits, demonstrations (or continue with problems, T303). 3:00 - Students can either check into rooms or attend Competition Ceremony in the Aitken Centre. 4:00 - Check into rooms (Harrison Hall) 5:00 - Dinner (LBR residence) 6:30-7:30 - Rubics Cube and Group Theory, Prof Yuly Billig, T303. 7:30-8:30 - Programming Strategy Games, Prof Dan Kucerovsky, T303. 9:00 - Informal games, eg. crokinole, cards, chess, etc. 11:00 - In rooms, lights out soon after. SATURDAY, MAY 13 8:00-8:45 - Breakfast. (LBR) 9:00-11:45 - Some Beautiful Properties of Circles, Prof. Barry Monson. T303 12:00-1:00 - Lunch (LBR) 1:15-3:00 - Counting, Prof. Roman Mureika. T303 3:30-4:30 - Calculus, Computers, Randomness, Prof. Vlad Tasic. T303 5:00-6:30 - Dinner (LBR) 6:30-7:30 - Interwoven Polygonal Frames, Prof. Bill Chernoff. T303 7:30 - Solutions to problems from earlier in the weekend. T303 Answers to your questions. 9:00 - Free Time 11:00 - In rooms, lights out soon after. SUNDAY, MAY 14 8:00-8:45 - Breakfast. (LBR) 9:00-11:00 - Math Relays, Problems. T303 HOME 4

CMS - ESSO MATH CAMP 2000 FINANCIAL STATEMENT REVENUE: Canadian Math. Society $1500.00 NB Prov. Dept. of Education $1000.00 UNB (V.P.(Academic)) $1000.00 $3500.00 EXPENSES: Transportation $32.20 Residence Accommodations $527.50 Meals (including Banquet) $1219.90 Snacks (juice/pop/fruit/cookies/chips/etc.) $39.83 Printing of T-Shirts $83.63 Office Supplies, Photocopying, etc. $154.38 Postage $12.68 Physical Plant $63.08 Assistants $222.00 $2355.20 July 14, 2000 5

6