Families solve a maths mystery at Scitech community event

A Scitech community event at Aveley North Primary School saw students and their families using their problem-solving skills to solve a maths mystery.

Scitech’s Mystery of the Mathematical Menace is an after-school event that allows parents and carers to see the skills their children are learning in mathematics, applied in a fun and engaging way. Maths problems are presented through interactive stations which families have to work together to solve, each giving them a new clue to uncover the identity of the suspect.

“The event is such a valuable way for students to show their parents and carers what they’ve been learning, and most of the time, it’s the kids showing the adults how to solve the problems,” Scitech Learning and Engagement Officer Stephanie Massara said.

“We find that the adults get just as much into the activities as the kids, sometimes even more so as we’ve seen adults not wanting to leave until they have solved the problem! Having adults be involved with their children’s learning is so important and this event demonstrates that by simply asking their children questions, they are helping them learn.”

Mystery of the Mathematical Menace is delivered at primary schools like Aveley North Primary School that are participating in Lighthouse Maths, Scitech’s year long professional learning program delivered in partnership with Chevron Australia. The program builds teachers’ skills and confidence by using a problem-solving approach to teaching maths. This approach gets students working collaboratively on problems and using their shared knowledge and understanding to come up with a solution, with teachers using targeted questioning to prompt further learning. At the end of the lesson students share their working with the class, showing how many different approaches and solutions there are to the same problem.

“An important part of the event is that families can’t just give us the answer, they need to use their provided booklet to show us their working out or evidence for how they reached their conclusion of who the suspect is,” Stephanie said. “Being able to show how you worked something out not only develops problem-solving skills, it builds other key skills such as communication and critical thinking which are applicable across the curriculum as well is in students’ daily life.”

Scitech’s Lighthouse Maths is in its fourth year and has seen some incredible results with students who participate in Lighthouse Maths classes achieving on average eight months of additional learning, beyond the expected growth of one year.