EPaDel Fall 2024 Section Meeting

Our Fall 2024 meeting will be held November 2, 2024 at Penn State Abington.

Registration

Register for the meeting

Directions and Parking

Most events take place in Woodland Hall. See the campus map.

Attendees should park in Parking Lot M, adjacent to Woodland Hall.

GPS Directions to Parking

Schedule

8:30 - 10:30Registration
Woodland Lobby
8:30 - 9:00Light Breakfast Reception (coffee, tea, pastries)
Woodland Lobby
9:00 - 9:10Welcoming Remarks
Woodland 112
9:15 - 10:05Invited speaker: Benjamin Gaines
Playing (And Winning) the Game of Cycles
Woodland 112
10:05 - 10:30Coffee Break & Silent Auction
Woodland Lobby
10:35 - 11:25Invited speaker: Steven Greenstein
Thinking With Things About Mathematical Things
Woodland 112
11:25 - 11:45Business Meeting, Section Awards, Group Photo
Woodland 112
11:45 - 1:00Lunch & Table Discussions
Lares Cafeteria
1:10 - 2:10Faculty/Graduate Speaker Sessions
Woodland Hall (various locations)

Student Activity
Lares Banquet Room
2:15 - 3:15Student Speaker Sessions
Woodland Hall (various locations)
3:35 - 4:25Invited speaker: Ranthony Clark
Quantitative Justice: Using Math to Change the World
Woodland 112
4:25 - 4:45Reception & Silent Auction Winners
Woodland Lobby

Invited Speakers

Image of Speaker Benjamin Gaines
Iona University
Playing (And Winning) the Game of Cycles

In the Play chapter of Mathematics for Human Flourishing by Francis Su, he introduces the Game of Cycles, a combinatorial game played on a graph consisting of vertices, non-overlapping edges connecting those vertices, and the two-dimensional cells enclosed by those edges. Players take turns marking arrows on edges, with the goal being to surround a cell with arrows all oriented the same direction. The only catch- players are not allowed to create any sinks or sources with their move. In this talk, we will describe how this game is played, the winning strategies that have been found for some families of boards, and some of the work that continues to be done on boards where a winning strategy has not yet been found. We'll also share how this game can be used to introduce mathematical ideas to interested students of all levels, with minimal background knowledge required.

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Image of Speaker Steven Greenstein
Montclair State University
Thinking With Things About Mathematical Things

As mathy people, we like to think about mathematical things. As a math educator, I like to think about how things shape our thinking about mathematical things. Things like physical manipulatives – tangible objects with pedagogical purposes – have a long history in math education. Recent research is contributing to the discussion by affirming that our thinking is not confined to the head. Rather, it is fully embodied. Even further, it’s extended through our interactions with material things. As the theory goes, the knowledge we have arises from our engagement with the full sensations of these embodied and extended experiences. In a very real sense, making sense is that which we make of our senses. In this talk, I will express some of these ideas through activities that invite the audience to make sense of mathematical ideas through their engagement with original manipulatives designed by future elementary teachers as part of their mathematics teacher preparation coursework. These experiences aim to demonstrate that manipulatives can provide the experiential context for activities essential to students’ learning of mathematics, and at every level of mathematics. And as far as objects-to-think-with go, they can be fun-to-think-with, too.

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Ranthony Clark
Duke University
Quantitative Justice: Using Math to Change the World

Quantitative Justice research comprises the mathematical, computational, and statistical investigation of real world problems related to social inequity. In this context, mathematical tools can be used to quantify notions of ‘fairness’ in a given domain, generating both new mathematics and impacting society at large. In this talk we will introduce this emergent field of interdisciplinary research. In particular, we will use computational redistricting as a motivating example to show how math like statistics, metric geometry, and topological data analysis is being used to shift societal systems.

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Student Activity

Local Organizers

The local organizer for this meeting is Matt Fury of Penn State Abignton. Please contact a local organizer with site-specific questions, or contact an Executive Committee member with more general questions.