TREND MICRO ENCOURAGES STUDENTS TO GET SOME SENSE ABOUT MATHS

23rd June 2015

Trend Micro Host Sense About Maths (SAM) Onsite Day Encouraging Students to Have Fun With Maths

Primary school students from schools across Cork were busy at maths in Trend Micro as part of the Sense About Maths (SAM) programme “onsite” day. The six-week programme for 5th & 6th class students aims to encourage engagement with maths in a new, interactive and entertaining by way bringing real-world skills into the classroom through a hands-on, activity driven programme.

SAM runs as part of a school day or as an after-school initiative. A mentor, usually from the Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths sector (STEM), works with the students on a weekly basis and helps them understand the different sectors thus stimulating interest in subjects outside of the curriculum including Sets, Tessellations, Hamiltonian Paths, Tangrams, Fibonacci Sequences And Tetris. Trend Micro, a global leader in security software with EMEA headquarters in Cork, hosted the day. Commenting at the “onsite” day William Dalton, SAM Mentor and Director of Corporate Technology at Trend Micro said: “SAM is very much a STEM enablement program targeted at national school level bringing a fun, collaborative and alternative maths teaching program which is delivered by industry professionals with a view to changing young children’s view on maths and influencing future career choices,”

Students from Scoil Mhuire, Rathpeacon, Gaelscoil Mhuscrai and Scoil an Spioraid Noaimh attended the onsite day in Trend Micro, which included talks on internet safety, cybercrime and bio-coderdojo, as well as an oculus rift and robotics demonstration. “It is a fantastic and interactive way to teach young people and offers a completely fresh approach tailored for 5th and 6th classes, so that they are interested and enjoy learning STEM subjects,” he added.

Mr Dalton continued: "The onsite day enriched kids on the relevancy of maths in everyday life and included a cryptography session by John Corkish to show how websites are secured, how maths is used in DNA Extraction through simple experiments to extract DNA from bananas as well as showing how maths is used for virtual imagery with Oculus Rift.”

Grainne Bagnall, Founder of SAM Senseaboutmaths.com said: “First and foremost, SAM operates with the interests of young minds at heart. At present, this sphere of learning is shrouded in misconceptions among impressionable kids. SAM Overall has had a coverage of 64 different maths classes and worked with 33 different schools. We aim to eliminate the myth that these subjects are boring, uncool, or even 'just for boys',”

Avril Ronan, Global Program Manager for Internet Safety at Trend Micro, who spoke to students about internet safety explained: “The culture of innovation is embedded in everything we do at Trend Micro, we really wanted to show young people how innovation works, and how they can be part of shaping the future of technology. By showing students how exciting it can be to work in an innovative technology company, we hope to encourage them to consider taking Science, Technology and Maths subjects, so that there is a pipeline of talented and interested young people available to work in this exciting and dynamic sector.”

The programme compliments the new 2014 Project Maths curriculum which has expanded Junior Cert maths to incorporate practical problems. These Project Maths problems involve four strands; statistics and probability, geometry and trigonometry, numbers and algebra. The lessons are presented in a fun and enjoyable way which requires engagement and task completion.

ENDS

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