In October 2018, the Department of Mathematics at UCL organised, in collaboration with the Chalkdust Magazine (insert link http://chalkdustmagazine.com) team, the first Black Mathematician Month outreach event: a day of talks, workshops and activities aimed at Year 9 and Year 10 students of African-Caribbean descent or Mixed Black backgrounds.
The event was hosted by London Academy of Excellence Tottenham and attended by 60 students from 6 local schools.
David Lammy, MP for Tottenham, opened the event with a powerful, inspirational talk about how you can achieve anything regardless of your background and how mathematics is leading technological changes. We also have a special guest speaker, Dr. Nira Chamberlain, the 5th most influential black person in the UK according to the 2018 Powerlist, talking about how maths can be applied to the real world.
After the talks, students attended workshops led by the Chalkdust magazine team and guests, on topics ranging from topology to modeling aliens and symmetries. A group of UCL undergraduate students then answered questions from the school pupils in a lively Q&A session. We closed the day with some hands-on maths relay.
The feedback was very positive with more than half of students saying that they were more likely to study A level Maths after attending the event.
To read more about the Black Mathematician Month event, please visit the Chalkdust Magazine blog:
http://chalkdustmagazine.com/black-mathematician-month/bmm-outreach/
To read more about Black Mathematician Month initiative by Chalkdust Magazine, please visit:
http://chalkdustmagazine.com/black-mathematician-month/