Inaugural Maths Week Scotland a great success

The inaugural Maths Week Scotland took place from 11 - 17th September 2017 at locations throughout Scotland. The festival follows the Maths Week Ireland model as a partnership of groups interested in promoting maths. Events took place at universities, colleges and in schools.

Eoin Gill and Sheila Donegan from Maths Week Ireland were delighted to travel over and meet some of the organisers from the Scottish Government. They attended an event at Glasgow University where Heather Reid spoke about "Maths the weather and me" also attended by members of the public of all ages. A physics graduate who joined the met office and became famous as BBC's "Heather the Weather Girl" she is now with Glasgow Science centre. Heather is a board member of Making Maths Count the Scottish Government's initiative to tackle maths performance in Scotland. In an entertaining and lively manner, Heather described her mathematical journey, outlined the importance of maths and explained how weather is forecast using maths (and supercomputers).

Heather also explained the workings of Making Maths Counts which made 10 recommendations to the Scottish Government, all of which have been accepted. In order to tackle societal attitudes towards maths, they decided to establish a Maths Week following consultation with Maths Week Ireland.

The event was followed by a reception at University of Glasgow's Mathematics and Statistics department's new Maths building. The maths week Ireland delegation were interested to learn of the similarities and differences between the Irish and Scottish situations. There is great opportunity for cooperation between Ireland and Scotland in this area.

On Saturday the Maths Week Ireland delegation visited the University of Edinburgh where Dr Francesca Iezzi and her colleagues ran a great Maths Circles event. Then it was off to Stirling to a great tongue-in-cheek debate at the University of Stirling.