The second session of Girls Exploring Math Monthly took place this last Saturday. This time the attendees explored latin and magic squares. They worked by themselves, challenged each other and naturally ended up working together to solve the problems.
A Latin square is an n by n grid filled with n different colors, each occurring exactly once in each row and exactly once in each column. When counting the number of different 3 by 3 Latin squares, Ella, a 7th grade student, said “If I fix the red, then there are only two possible ways of arranging the other two colors. Since there are 6 different configurations for the red, then there are 12 distinct colorings.”
During lunch, they had fun playing SET. They were competing against each other, but when the group of cards on play was a particularly difficult one, they joined forces. They came up with classification strategies that could help them better tackle the problem.
This event is part of a long term project that includes monthly workshops and a summer camp. The project Girls Exploring Math invites young women to experience mathematics through engaging activities in an nontraditional environment, and seeks to attract women to pursue careers in math.