What's the Big Idea Game Show: Students’ Lives

This post features behind-the-scenes content about the 2021 NMF Live Performance Series event "What's the Big Idea? A Game Show Featuring Students and Mathematicians", created and hosted by The Young People's Project.

The NMF Live Game Show was planned over about four months by a group of CMLWs (College Math Literacy Workers), MLWs (High School Math Literacy Workers), and middle school YPP volunteers. The student judges and host visible on camera were only part of the group, which also included a vote tabulator, among others.

Participants on game day logged into Zoom to see mathematicians make short presentations at the middle, high school, and college levels. Attendees voted live on Zoom in four categories: math content (clarity), “people talk” (relatability, the language used in the presentation), visuals (presentation style), and curiosity. 

Older students in the group coordinated the work of younger students and mentored them through the process, which included each student making a 30-second video sharing research into the life of a mathematician of their choosing.

The Young People’s Project (YPP) brings together middle school students and high school mentors to celebrate, encourage, and motivate mathematical learning. The organization’s focus is around Math Literacy, Near-Peer Mentorship, and Social Justice.  YPP trains high school students, and then employs them as Math Literacy Workers, to develop interactive games to improve their own math literacy, and to use them to improve the literacy of their younger peers.

This event highlighted students’ balancing act between their school lives, their math literacy work with YPP, and the additional venture of designing and producing the Game Show.