Girls Talk Math - Engaging Girls through Math Media

Girls Talk Math is a free two-week-long day camp for high-school students identifying as female or from an underrepresented gender. Founded in 2016 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, GTM ran for the third time last summer funded by the Mathematical Association of America Tensor Women and Mathematics Grant. In July of 2018, a sister camp at the University of Maryland at College Park had its first run.

Campers complete challenging problem sets and research the life of female scientists who worked on similar problems. They report their work in blog posts and podcasts (media available online). The camp curriculum has been developed by Mathematics graduate students at UNC from an inquiry-based learning perspective. Problem sets topics include theoretical and applied mathematics, as well as physics-based material, such as fluid dynamics, special relativity, SIR modeling, and quantum mechanics (some include experiments).

We received positive feedback from the local community and interest from other Universities. The program is evaluated through pre- and post-surveys measuring campers' confidence and interest in pursuing higher level courses in STEM. Results from the past three summers have been encouraging and curriculum is now available online with open access.