TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Math is critical in so many facets of life, and it’s important to teach it early in order to spark an interest in future mathematicians. Mathworks Founder and Executive Director Max Warshauer has been holding summer math camps for kids annually for 30 years. Mathworks at Texas State University is a center for innovation in mathematics education, according to the university website. This year, the half day Sum- mer Math Camp, which caters to grades 3rd to 8th, was held at Doris Miller Middle School.
“The host of the camp, which we couldn't do it [without them] has been the San Marcos school district,” Warshauer said. “What an amazing facility, wonderful food and wonderful support from the cafeteria staff.”
The curriculum was taught by math teachers receiving professional development as well as undergraduate education students from Texas State University.
San Marcos Consolidated Independent School District Academics Executive Director James Nevarez was invited to speak at the closing ceremony of the camp.
“Thank you all for your commitment to the partnership between San Marcos CISD and Texas State. It's extremely important for us to expose students to math [early],” Nevarez said. “I have a computer science background, and I probably wouldn't be able to do what I'm doing today without the skills that I learned from that — being able to take a large problem and decompose it, or break it up, into small problems so that I could create solutions to those things. And everything that our students are being exposed to today or through this camp is going to help them be better problem solvers, be able to take critically through things, to reason logically, all the transferable skills that we would hope for our students and our children happen through camps like this.”
Barrett Bryant, TXST College of Sciences and Engineering dean, said that Mathworks is a very special program at the university.
“It's math that really is the foundation, not only for computer science, but for most of the sciences and also engineering,” Bryant said. “For example, you might be surprised to know that you also need math if you want to do something like chemistry. But on the other hand, you might be even more surprised that we have programs like Concrete Industry Management [and] Construction Science Management. Do you see all the work they're doing on I-35 — concrete work [and] buildings going up all the time? All of that takes math as a foundation.”
Learn more about the Summer Math Camps at this link txst.edu/mathworks/ camps.
Pictured are the teachers receiving professional development through their work at the camp. Daily Record photo by Shannon West
