Motivate Long Projects 2008-09

Online registration form

Experiments in Astronomy
"It's not that I'm smart"
Reading between the lines: Communicating with codes

In these extended projects we want to:

enrich the mathematical and scientific experience of the students and teachers involved
give students and teachers a sense of belonging to a mathematical and scientific community
give students and teachers an opportunity to go beyond the normal curriculum and to use techniques from the curriculum in unfamiliar contexts
help students see that maths and science are relevant, living subjects and that they have many interesting links to other curriculum areas
provide extended projects which will help students develop creative and critical thinking and problem solving skills
provide project work which students can work on collaboratively or alone
give students an opportunity to present their own work to an audience outside their own school, to answer questions and to receive feedback on it
help students develop their communication and presentation skills

More about our philosophy and conferences

Each of these projects will last from September 2007 until summer 2008. In each case, there will be a preliminary teacher briefing via videoconference for participating schools and then two student VCs per term (so a total of either 6). In addition, we will provide extensive project work on the topic for students to work on outside the VCs and to report on at the following VC. It is our intention to have have four participating schools on each Long Project.

You are welcome to choose as many of these as you like. The online registration form will require you to put them into your preferred order - if you want to participate in more than one long project, please make this clear.

Please do not choose any project on which you would not be happy to have a place. We will do our best to ensure that wherever possible you get your first choice.

We do not usually specify an ability or achievement level for our conferences, since we hope that the majority of students of the appropriate age can participate, although they may well work at different levels. We offer plenty of choice in the project work for each term so that teachers and students can choose areas which interest them and are at an appropriate level of difficulty.

To apply for a place you will need to:

Submit our online registration form.
Send a signed hard copy of our Booking Confirmation form to Julia Hawkins, Deputy Director MMP, CMS, Wilberforce Road, Cambridge, CB3 0WA, or fax to Julia Hawkins, 01223 765900.
Arrange and complete a satisfactory VC test with Adrian Cullum-Hanshaw (01223 764278 or 0774 703 5984) if this has not already been done by your school.

Once these three requirements are completed, we will send you a copy of your Agreement signed by us - this will commit us to providing the Project and you to doing it.

Target age ranges and costs are shown for each project below. If you want further information about any other aspect of these projects, please contact us (Jenny Gage).

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Experiments in Astronomy

Lisa Jardine-Wright (Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge)

Duration of project: September 2008 - June/July 2009
Number of student videoconferences: 6
Target age range: 11-13 years
Total cost: £1650, payable in three termly instalments
Relevant curriculum areas: science, maths, astronomy

In this project, students will have the opportunity to experiment with some of the ideas and tools that astronomers use to make discoveries about the universe - we will use simple experiments to investigate mathematical, scientific and astronomical concepts. We will begin with the Earth, Sun and Solar System and move on to talk about the stars and learn about other objects in the universe. Projects will include topics such as:

measuring distance
sizes and shapes
planetary surfaces
planning a mission to another planet
colour and light
life on other planets
black holes
galaxies.

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"It's not that I'm smart"

Alan Parr, former Maths Advisor for Hertfordshire

Albert Einstein said "It's not that I'm smart - I just stick with problems longer". In the sessions we will look at some problems that are worth sticking with. All are accessible and suitable even for non-Einsteins, and all offer a rich variety of potential mathematical exploration. We'll cover lots of work in both number and shape and space, and all of it will be grounded in the skills of Attainment Target 1, using and Applying Mathematics.

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Reading between the lines: Communicating with codes

Nadia Baker (Enigma Project, MMP, University of Cambridge)

Duration of project: September 2008 - June/July 2009
Number of student videoconferences: 6
Target age range: 11-13 years
Total cost: no further places available
Relevant curriculum areas: maths, history, language (English and/or other)

When did people start using secret codes?
What kinds of codes have they invented?
How do you decode a secret message?
Is there such a thing as a totally secure code?
How are codes used to communicate and check for errors?

These are some of the questions we will be considering in this project.

As well as finding out the history of codes, students will have clues to solve and coded messages to crack. We will also encourage them to send each other coded messages to decipher. In addition, a genuine World War II Enigma machine will be demonstrated to the students. Around Easter, students will be sent a parcel which they have to work out how to open. The contents will include a do-it-yourself Enigma machine.

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