Adventure camp adds up to a fun way to learn

Lifestyle – Judy Murphy hears about a novel approach to demystify maths for kids over Summer

Summer holidays are the stuff of dreams for young people and teachers alike. Long days of freedom and, hopefully, sunshine beckon. But the reality for young people and their parents is days and weeks where boredom must be kept at bay. Hence the inexorable rise of summer adventure camps offering courses in everything from sports to drama and technology.

These camps are big business, employing hundreds of third-level students and teachers throughout the summer months.

One of the more unusual offerings comes from the Connemara-based Maths Academy, which runs courses for residential and day students based on the Leaving Cert and Junior Cert maths syllabus.

A summer camp focusing on maths might not sound like a great deal of fun to your average student, but the Connemara Maths Academy has a practical and high-octane approach that promises to take the mystery out of this often loathed subject.

Its tutors take the basic school curriculum and teach it using high ropes, giant swings, kayaking and bog challenges to explain concepts from statistics to trigonometry and algebra, explains Aengus O’Connor of the Academy. Creative media, such as 3D animations, film production and music technology are also part of the course.

This approach is unconventional, but according to Aengus, it works, and he has happy pupils and parents who will testify to that fact.

The adventure and technology activities offered by the Maths Academy are fun but they are not an end in themselves. Rather they are an opportunity to let students explore the maths behind what’s involved in these ventures.

For instance, says Aengus, when students are kayaking, they wear a helmet with a camera on it. This allows them to record footage of themselves in action and then edit into a movie.

While the purpose of their film is to tell a story, it also allows them to explore mathematics.

“It’s how you construct a story and create balance,” Aengus says. “Making a film is about what you start with, and what you add and take away, so this gets people to think about the equation of making a story.”

Students also learn about the maths involved in creating digital photography, as well as the music used for the soundtrack.

In other activities, such as orienteering, they learn about mathematical principals such as co-ordinates, showing where they are on the map.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.