Math Camp song wins award

The Heidelberg University Council of Teachers of Mathematics (HUCTM) is a student affiliate of the Ohio Council of Teachers of Mathematics. This spring, they entered their original math camp song, “The Math Git Up,” into the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) best math song competition. Out of 55 entries from across the country, Heidelberg’s song placed 5th.

“We were excited and surprised,” said Autumn Simpson, ’21, about hearing the song placed.

Autumn was one of the students who worked on the song. The first round of the competition was based on voting. Heidelberg’s video received over 1,200 votes, which put them into the final round of judging, which was based on musicianship, originality, math content, production, and student engagement.

“The value of having a song [for math camp] is that children learn best when they are able to connect body movement to the content, in this case math, that they are learning,” said Dr. Lindsey Haubert, Assistant Professor of Mathematics Education and HUCTM Faculty Adviser. “The dance moves are associated with the math that is in the song.”

This is Heidelberg’s second year running math camps, having run its first Collegiate Math Camp in January, 2019. It’s a two-part program. The group teaches current students how to run a math camp and then goes out into the surrounding communities to run real math camps for elementary schools.

“Running these math camps strengthens our teaching practices and helps build our confidence,” Autumn said. “You have to learn how to take content and think of ways to create activities that increase engagement.”

This academic year, education students organized a collegiate camp in conjunction with an open house recruiting event and four camps at elementary schools - Hopewell Loudon (3rd and 4th grade), Noble (4th and 5th grade), Krout (2nd and 3rd grade), and Lima Bath (3rd and 4th).  Their goal for the future is to run at least five kid camps a year and one collegiate.  

“We want to give kids a new perspective on math, while helping them to learn to love learning and love math,” Autumn said. “Everyone is capable of doing math.”