Students setting up their student accounts on repl.it for their programming class.
For the first time, BEAM Los Angeles is holding Saturday math enrichment classes. Twenty-six Summer Away alums are attending the classes, which are being held at BEAM’s new space in Koreatown, in the heart of the community that BEAM serves.
We have an exciting line up:
Al, who has served as faculty at BEAM Discovery LA for two summers, is teaching a class on Lines, Planes, and Coordinates as a supplement to algebra.
Jacob, Executive Director of BEAM LA, is teaching a class on Things you Missed in Prealgebra, based on elements covered in The Art of Problem Solving's pre-algebra 2 class.
Don, Programs Coordinator at BEAM LA, is teaching Solving Big Problems, which tackles difficult, multi-part questions and puzzles.
Sherry, a postdoc at UCLA, is teaching Programming with Python, which gives student a taste of computer science.
Al said this about teaching at BEAM: "Being able to see my BEAM students grow through middle school has been such a rewarding experience. They are more motivated and determined mathematicians and people. During class they talk about the fundamental principles of Euclidean geometry and during lunch they talk about how to choose the best high school for their career paths. I teach at BEAM because I see the direct impact we have on these students. Also, I've never seen a place before where so many people are pumped to do math at 9 am on a Saturday!"
We asked Abel, one of our Saturday class participants, why he comes to classes. He said, “School is boring and the classes at BEAM are challenging. I get to work on hard problems with other people that care about math and talk about the problems.”
What problems are students like Abel working on? Here’s a warm-up problem from Jacob’s class:
What sets of positive integers (n,k) satisfy the inequality n2+ k > 29?
We are excited to continue creating a space for students to engage in the mathematics they’ve experienced at BEAM’s summer programs and are glad that they are as excited as we are!
(From left) Steve, Alexis, Mischelle, Coral, and Aracely present their solution to a river crossing problem.