Math Awareness Month

Tomorrow marks the end of Math Awareness Month. Dating back to 1986, the goal of Math Awareness Month is to create public understanding of and appreciation for mathematics. The theme for this year's celebration couldn't be more appropriate – Mathematics and Voting.

From the announcement of the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics:

In a presidential election year, voting is uppermost on our minds. Candidates vie for attention, polls are taken, debates held, blogs written, primaries conducted, and, ultimately, a general election leads to the naming of the next president of the United States. Some of us are deeply engaged in these processes, and some keep them at a distance. Yet, most people wonder at some point: Does my vote matter? Is the election process fair? Are the votes being counted correctly? The answers to these questions involve great complexity, but fortunately, mathematics and statistics provide the means to deal with such complexity.

Math is part of our lives in places we don't even recognize it.  That's why it is critical that Americans put more emphasis and interest on the mathematics skills of our students. As I've pointed out many times before – compared to 30 industrialized nations, the U.S ranks 25th in math.

Check out the Math Awareness Web site – there are plenty of additional resources to download and you can also test your knowledge of math and voting.

Most importantly - let's make it a priority this year to "vote for math."