Virtual Sonia Kovalevsky Day Mathematics Outreach Events for Middle School Girls

Abstract

Sonia Kovalevsky Days (SK Days) are nationally-held outreach events that are commonly organized by local chapters of the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) to encourage young women to continue their study of mathematics. The AWM Student Chapter at Worcester Polytechnic Institute hosted virtual renditions of SK Day for middle school girls in Spring 2020 and 2021. This paper discusses the implementation of these events, including the virtual program logistics and five interactive online mathematics activities. Participant feedback suggests a successful transition from an in-person to online format of SK Day, with benefits to both the middle school participants and the undergraduate student volunteers. The activities and online resources described in this article have the potential to be utilized in future hybrid outreach events.

Keywords:

• Mathematics outreach
• women in mathematics
• virtual programs
• online activities
• middle school
• K–12 outreach
• STEM

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many thanks to the wonderful WPI student and faculty volunteers who dedicated their time to helping make our virtual SK Days a great success: Francesca Bernardi, Jane Bouchard, Madhusree Chowdhury, Liz Cole, Elizabeth Euwart, Kayla Fabry, Allyson Floria, Dane Johnson, Leah Mitchell, Justine Moy, Olivia Pineiro, Xavier Ramos Olive, Ally Salvino, Bella Speer, Natalie Tierney, Alix Wagner, Duncan Wright, and Bauyrzhan Yerghizit. Special thanks to our WPI AWM Student Chapter officers and Virtual SK Day activity leaders for their outstanding contributions: Sara Amato, Cyra Katoch, Mona Ma, Dayna Mercadante, Lynne Moore, Elisa Negrini, and Laura Staugler. Our sincere thanks to Laurie Leshin, Jean King, Luca Capogna, Sarah Olson, Suzanne Weekes, Mike Malone, and Rhonda Podell for their much-appreciated support of these events, as well as to the reviewers and editors for their valuable feedback on this manuscript.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Virtual SK Days 2020 and 2021 at WPI were supported by a grant from the Women's Impact Network (to Andrea Arnold) and by the WPI Department of Mathematical Sciences.

Notes on contributors

Andrea Arnold

Andrea Arnold is an applied mathematician with research interests in computational inverse problems and uncertainty quantification. She received her Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Case Western Reserve University and her B.S. in Mathematics from Duquesne University. Before joining the faculty at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), she completed her postdoctoral research in Mathematical Biology at North Carolina State University. She is the faculty advisor of the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) Student Chapter at WPI. She serves as a program director for Sonia Kovalevsky Days at WPI, with events held annually since Spring 2019.