Math Catcher: Mathematics Through Aboriginal Storytelling

In Spring 2011, NSERC awarded a PromoScience grant to the project Math Catcher: Mathematics Through Aboriginal Storytelling, which was proposed by the first author of this note. The project is also sponsored by the Pacific Institute for Mathematical Sciences, the Faculty of Science, the Department of Mathematics and the IRMACS Centre from Simon Fraser University, and the Department of Mathematics from the University of British Columbia.

Participants in the First Nations Math Education Workshop which was held in Banff, Alberta, in November 2009

The project is an outcome of the BIRS supported First Nations Math Education Workshop which was held in Banff, Alberta, in November 2009[1]. As it is stated in the Workshop’s Final Report:

[t]he workshop was based on the assumption that First Nations/Aboriginal student participation and success in school math programs is limited. (...) Presently only 2% of BC’s Aboriginal population completes Principles of Mathematics 12 compared to a completion rate of 25% for the whole BC population. This discrepancy in completion rate is one of the issues this group wanted to address given that successful completion of Principles of Mathematics 12 is a compulsory entrance prerequisite for many post- secondary programs in British Columbia, and the statistics are similar in the other provinces.

The project was particularly inspired by the following two conclusions identified by Workshop participants as strategies for overcoming challenges in teaching mathematics to Aboriginal youth:

• Teach math in the cultural context of the students,
• Teach basic skills and problem-solving early.

During the workshop, Mark Mac Lean and Veselin Jungic co-wrote a story, Small Number Counts to 100, which served as the cornerstone of the grant proposal.