GRANT: Middle School Math

MathMovesU is a new education initiative that aims to excite American middle school students to study math and improve their perceptions of math.

Why MathMovesU?
A recent national survey, sponsored by Raytheon, verified what you as teachers already know -- that only a third of students report liking math a great deal, and many report having a difficult time understanding the math they are taught (43%) or think it is boring (34%).

However, the majority of these students want to improve their math skills and recognize math's importance. The vast majority of middle school students report that they would be more interested in math if they learned about celebrities (79%) or were shown how people in music, sports and video games use math in their jobs (81%).

So MathMovesU enlists celebrities like skateboard legend Tony Hawk and soccer star Mia Hamm to get kids' attention and show them how math plays a surprisingly important role in their careers.

Program Details

Through MathMovesU, you can:

• Apply for a Math Hero Award, which makes $2500 grants to individuals and $2500 grants to the school or math-related non-profit program of the individual’s choosing.
• Send in your ideas about making math fun and win a surprise celebrity visit for your school.
• Encourage middle school students to win exciting prizes every week by answering celebrity-related math challenges online.
• Spread the word about the $1000 scholarships offered to middle and high school students, with a matching $1000 grant to the students’ school.

Exciting Upcoming Events
In April, MathMovesU will host the nation-wide “Hippest Homework Happening” event online at the MathMovesU Web site. MathMovesU celebrities will be on hand to demonstrate how math figures into their careers and the MathMovesU team is going to make math homework a cool thing to do!

We applaud educators like you who work with kids everyday, and hope we can help you engage students in a new way. Additional teacher resources and information is available on the MathMovesU Web site.