Queen’s professor emerita Lynda Colgan receives the 2023 Margaret Sinclair Memorial Award for lifetime devotion to inspiring a love of science and math in youth.

Most dad and mom need their youngsters to achieve math lessons, however many overtly say they don’t seem to be sturdy in math themselves and battle to help their kids in doing so. The problem to enhance Canadian youth’s math literacy is, thus, larger than adapting and enhancing faculty curricula: it requires involving households and communities in recognizing the worth and relevance of math in our day by day lives.

This has been one of many main objectives for Lynda Colgan, professor emerita within the School of Schooling. For her lifetime achievements in innovation and creativity in arithmetic training, she was awarded the 2023 Margaret Sinclair Memorial Award by College of Toronto’s Fields Institute of Analysis in Mathematical Sciences. The annual award “acknowledges an educator in Canada who has demonstrated innovation and excellence in selling arithmetic training on the elementary, secondary, faculty or college stage.”

Dr. Colgan has labored throughout all ranges: over 4 a long time, she taught arithmetic inside Ontario’s public training system, from elementary to post-secondary. She has additionally supported curriculum improvement and trainer training, in addition to authored textbooks and curriculum technique programs. Past formal training, Dr. Colgan has led quite a few outreach initiatives, from Household Math programs and math-based tv packages to non-fiction books.

Moreover, in 2011, she launched Science Rendezvous Kingston, an annual free, family-oriented occasion that hosts Queen’s researchers and group companions to showcase their work in enjoyable, interactive shows, and demonstrations. Since then, Science Rendezvous Kingston has grow to be the biggest pop-up science discovery centre in Canada, attracting 1000’s of tourists every year. The success of the Kingston occasion led her to just accept the position of Government Director, Schooling and Improvement at Science Rendezvous’ nationwide workplace.

The Margaret Sinclair Memorial Award acknowledges Dr. Colgan’s efforts to advance arithmetic past educational practices, creating alternatives to make math extra accessible and valued outdoors the school rooms, and reshaping damaging attitudes in direction of the self-discipline. However there may be additionally a really private cause why this award is significant. Dr. Colgan was a pal and colleague of Margaret Sinclair, whom she met throughout their PhD research on the College of Toronto.

“Margaret opened one among her early papers with a quote from mathematician and educator Seymour Papert, who used to say we don’t educate kids – as an alternative, we create contexts during which they may study,” says Dr. Colgan. “I knew then that Margaret and I have been kindred spirits – one thing that makes this award so intimate and particular.”

This September, throughout The Fields Institute Arithmetic Schooling Discussion board (MathEd Discussion board), Dr. Colgan will ship the 2023 Margaret Sinclair Memorial Award Lecture and share a few of her learnings and training journey doing math outdoors on the soccer discipline, making mathemagical artwork, and revisiting the mathematical ancients in Egypt, India and China.

Science Rendezvous Kingston 2023

At the moment, Dr. Colgan and the staff within the Vice-Principal (Analysis) portfolio are busy getting ready for the thirteenth version of Science Rendezvous Kingston, to be held on Might 13 on the Leon’s Centre. This yr’s occasion will host 50 totally different cubicles, with shows and actions on matters like robotics, paleontology, chemistry, psychology, geography, biology, geology, artwork conservation, engineering, well being and, in fact, arithmetic.

“I’m a agency believer within the energy of casual training – educating and studying outdoors of the partitions of the college,” states Dr. Colgan. “Science Rendezvous pairs ideas and approaches from inquiry-based classroom studying, museums, science centres and carnivals to create an invitational atmosphere designed to coach, interact, and encourage learners of all ages, particularly youth.”

The 2023 occasion will showcase extra Queen’s researchers and groups than ever earlier than, in addition to an enormous Saurophaganax, a large flooring map celebrating UN’s Ocean Decade (2020-2030), and a Sensory Pleasant Science Zone, for youths who need to discover Science Rendezvous in a quieter means. 

To study extra about Science Rendezvous Kingston, go to the web site.