It's fast! It's fun! It's math from the streets! Join our roving reporter Olivier as he talks 'real math' with real people -- from math anxiety and math puzzles to the role of math in everyday life. When was the last time you used math? You might use your skills more often than you think—maybe even this morning when you made coffee or tea, or measured ingredients for a breakfast smoothie! Join us as we have fun with math that's hidden in plain site.
From counting change and measuring the size of a room, to making a travel budget and seeing geometric patterns in nature, math is everywhere in our daily lives. But unlike reading, which people think of as an essential skill anyone can learn, math is often seen as something only those with natural talent and 'math brains' are comfortable with.
Math anxiety is real, but recognizing and overcoming it is a real possibility for most people. You do not need a 'math brain' to improve your math skills. With more practice, support, and a positive attitude, most people can become less anxious and more confident about numbers and calculations.
Math isn't something that exists only in math class. Numbers pop up in daily life all the time, and we couldn't avoid them even if we tried. It's easy to forget how much math we all do on a daily basis. The good news is that most of us are already better at everyday math than we might think, and practice makes perfect!
There's often more than one way to solve a problem, and being able to use math effectively can make many problems easier to solve. What if you don't have a cake? Problem solved if you can bake one. And being able to use math while you're baking — for example, to measure the right amount of each ingredient — can prevent new problems, not to mention kitchen catastrophes, before they happen! Math is a useful tool that can make many ordinary activities easier and problem-free.