National Math Stars

Our CEO Ilana had a great time visiting SigmaCamp, a STEM summer program that teaches math, chemistry, biology, physics, and linguistics in a beautiful remote setting. Every summer, camp leaders transform rustic cabins into fully functioning laboratories, complete with microscopes, lasers, and even a glassblowing workshop!

Reminder: voting for SXSW EDU 2025 closes this Sunday! If you have not already done so, please take a moment to vote for our panel: https://lnkd.in/g-aR3DVY. By doing so, you will help us (and other great organizations with aligned missions) reach more educators - and therefore find and support more amazing students - nationwide!

We love it when our Stars share their other talents with us! Here's one of our Stars, Idris, combining two of his greatest loves (math and dogs) during a talent show at Epsilon Camp!

Please help us share our mission of identifying and supporting talented students from all backgrounds! We've proposed a SXSW EDU panel along with colleagues at Bridge to Enter Advanced Mathematics (BEAM), Johns Hopkins Center For Talented Youth (CTY), and Jack Kent Cooke Foundation. We need your help to get it accepted at the conference! Our programs work best in close collaboration with schools. This opportunity will help us build more of those connections and open paths to advanced study for more students. You can create a SXSW account and vote for the panel here: https://lnkd.in/g-aR3DVY.

We love this photo that one of our pilot families shared with us last week! Solomon has been meeting with Al, our math mentor coach, for weekly sessions during which another pilot student and he are learning how to code in Python. Solomon and his family were camping last week with no cell service but they asked the nearby country store to let Solomon use their Wifi and space so he wouldn't miss his Python session!

Day 1 of Math Circles of Houston's summer camp was a success for our pilot student, Xavier! He loved making new friends and learning about a new math game called Leapfrog.

Just as four of our pilot students headed home after two weeks at Epsilon Camp, another pilot student settled into his dorm at his very first sleepaway camp for one of Johns Hopkins Center For Talented Youth (CTY)'s robotics summer camps!

We're so proud of our four pilot students and their families for successfully completing two weeks of Epsilon Camp! For three of them, this was their first time away at a residential summer camp. It was the perfect opportunity to engage in rich mathematical explorations and discussions with like-minded peers and to meet some of the other National Math Stars students and families in person! We're so excited to continue to support them in finding summer experiences like this one for many years to come.

Our CEO, Ilana, shares her personal journey with academic acceleration in this new Chalkbeat op-ed. Read it to learn how she advocates for more accessible acceleration options in schools and explains how National Math Stars will support mathematically gifted students from all backgrounds access the acceleration and enrichment they need.

One of the most frequently asked questions about our program is how much of what we offer is in-person versus virtual. Although many of our core program components during the school year are virtual (such as the advanced math courses and math mentoring sessions), we will have in-person opportunities throughout the year for our Stars. Some of these include a Welcome Weekend for the whole cohort, regional meet-ups, and summer math camps. Here's a photo of one of our favorite moments this summer when David and Xavier met for the first time in person after interacting with each other for almost five months in their virtual math mentoring sessions!