Go Figure — The Math Club is Hot
The new school club, started with grant money, is popular.
Wisconsin State Journal
October 5, 2003
By Doug Erickson
One of the hottest after-school clubs at Prairie View Middle School in Sun Prairie these days has nothing to do with sports and everything to do with math.
Really.
The school recently launched a math club with money from a $23,000 grant. The twice-weekly club has drawn as many as 40 students for some events.
"I can't believe how many people signed up," said math teacher Craig Brandl, one of the club's advisers. "I was worried students would think of it as a geek club."
The money came from the Actuarial Foundation of Schaumburg, Ill., a grant-making organization that focuses on youth and consumer education and on furthering careers in the actuary profession.
Actuaries evaluate the likelihood of future events and design ways to reduce the likelihood of undesirable events. Many are employed by insurance companies.
The school is using the money to take math club members on field trips and to buy items such as electrical circuit kits and rocket-building materials. One field trip took students to a corn maze, where they learned map orienteering, Brandl said.
As part of the grant award, actuaries from General Casualty Cos., an insurance provider based in Sun Prairie, are serving as volunteer math mentors and helping to teach some math classes.
About 10 mentors take turns assisting students in study halls and in helping Brandl with larger projects in his math classes, he said. Some of the topics explored so far are budgeting, probability through games, investments, restaurant math, shopping and statistics.
"It teaches students that there's math involved in everything, and it gives them so much more support than just me being in the room," Brandl said.
The Actuarial Foundation | 475 North Martingale Road, Suite 600,
Schaumburg, IL 60173-2226 | 847.706.3535 |