17 August 2022

Maths teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand can now order Maths Craft in a Box, shipped free to your school.

Maths Craft in a Box is a free and entirely self-contained classroom resource, dedicated to exploring the wondrous world of mathematics through the engaging medium of craft.

The first edition of Maths Craft in a Box is dedicated to exploring the fascinating world of fractals in the classroom, including enough craft materials to build a large fractal sculpture, packs of student Zines (workbooks) providing a beautifully illustrated introduction to the mathematics of fractals, and custom-made online instructional videos. The Box includes enough content to easily fill several lessons, is ideal for years 7-13, and can be entirely student-led.

The Maths Craft in a Box team is made up of Te Pūnaha Matatini investigators and Maths Craft New Zealand founders Dr Jeanette McLeod and Dr Phil Wilson, Te Pūnaha Matatini investigator and designer Jo Bailey, and educational researcher Dr David Pomeroy.

They put together Maths Craft in a Box to help teachers anywhere in Aotearoa New Zealand bring mathematical thinking into the classroom at a crucial age for tamariki. This creative and free resource brings mathematics to life as a subject. Students who already love maths will find something new and enriching in the Box, and a pilot project in Ōtautahi Christchurch showed that most children who don’t like maths felt differently after engaging with the Box.

One of the 20 Menger sponges you can build with Maths Craft in a Box.

Maths Craft also hope to change some long-held misconceptions about mathematics. While elsewhere in the world maths is seen as a gateway subject for a wide variety of important careers, in Aotearoa it is still common for children to be told that if they are good at maths they should become engineers or teachers.

We do need more engineers and more teachers, but we also need more physicists, statisticians, data scientists, computer scientists, programmers, mathematical modellers, actuaries, climate modellers, and many more besides, all of which rely on advanced mathematics.

In the last few years we have seen the crucial role played by mathematicians in the government’s response to Covid-19. We need more mathematically-trained people in Aotearoa as we respond to future threats of disease, climate change, and cyber security.

If you are a maths teacher in Aotearoa New Zealand and are ready to use Maths Craft in a Box in your classroom, you can place your order today.