The European Office of Cyprus co-ordinated a Mathematics Theatre Competition in April/ May 2010. CASC’s Romanian partners, ProSal, and the University of Petrosani went along to watch to see if something similar would work in Romania:
The competition asked students from gymnasium and lyceum to prepare short plays with a mathematical theme and was hosted by the University of Cyprus central building, Lefkosia. Our colleagues in Cyprus are very interested in ways of making mathematics more attractive to students and are looking at various ways of collaborating with specialist in comedy and magic to achieve this.
The Romanian group had the opportunity to watch four plays, with the theme of mathematical topics in a parallel past – present, three of them in the ancient languages & Modern Greek language, and one in English. The commitment of the students and teachers seemed remarkable.
At this time, we are not sure whether or not such an activity would work well in Romania. We are looking forward to reading the detailed report and evaluation of the activity to understand the impact of the competition on the public to which it was addressed. <for more information see www.eucasc.eu, http://casc.posterous.com >.
In addition to seeing the competition, we also took the opportunity to meet with Cypriot academics to discuss common areas of research and possible synergies.
At the Cyprus University of Technology, Limassol, we met with Professors and specialists of the Faculty of Geotechnical Sciences and Environmental Management and Research Management and Research, International and Public Relations Department. This has opened a communication channel for future collaborations:
– In the Erasmus Exchange Programme
– Cooperation under international projects framework, with topics related to environmental protection.
We were interested to find out how Universities in Cyprus communicate with the public. It appears that this is mainly via the Internet and typed materials, like in Romania.