Math is COOL at MoMath!

Waverly here, your Patch NYC Kids' Mayor! I admit - I am not the biggest fan of math and I was counting on MoMath to change how I feel about it -- see what I did there...counting on...
I would love to be as excited to go to math class as I was to visit this museum. As soon as we walked through the doors, I was already excited! I immediately saw a moving wall that was so satisfying to look at, I could have just stared at it all day! But there was so much more going on and lots of people in there enjoying all the fun stuff that I knew I had to go in and experience it for myself!

The whole place was like one big, adventurous, indoor theme park with so much to do, I couldn't believe it! Two floors of fun! We shot baskets using angles and throw statistics (I made it in on my first try- thanks, math!), drove a car around a mobius strip, created 3D sculptures and logos, painted beautiful paintings with symmetry....

Oh, and we also RODE SQUARE-WHEELED TRIKES! And that was just the first floor! There was even more cool stuff downstairs! I made fractal patterns, had fun playing a cool math game called "Finding Fifteen" (one of my favorites), and even made myself into a Human Tree using repeating patterns (another one of my favorites)!

All I can say is, ok, I admit it...Math is cool. MoMath will make you see that, too! Even cooler than MoMath, though, is its Executive Director, Cindy Lawrence, who was cool enough to answer a few questions:

What does the Executive Director do at the Museum of Math?
The Executive Director does everything. By everything, that is starting with what we
have to offer at the Museum, working on exhibits, developing new programs, trying to find new
audiences to come in and explore the wonder and beauty of mathematics. All the way down to
hiring staff, finding the people who will work in the Museum, help bring those exhibits and
programs to life, to cleaning up around the Museum sometimes, or doing some more mundane
things that have to happen. In my role as Executive Director I work closely with a board of 21
different people from around the entire country. These are people who help support the
Museum and help decide what direction the Museum should go in. Right now, our mission and
our direction are to change perceptions of mathematics. If people love math, we think they'll
come in and they'll really like the Museum, and that's great. But if people hate math, they'll
come in and we think they'll love the Museum. That's part of our reason for being is to take
people that are less comfortable with math, or don't think they're good at it, or never liked it,
and show them that there's a whole new and different world of math. It's wonderful, exciting,
fun, and these are not words that people typically associate with mathematics. But I'll tell you
what, everyone who comes into the Museum at some point or another, ends up saying these
three words, "That's so cool." That's what MoMath is all about.

Complete this sentence: Kids should come visit the National Museum of Mathematics because...
Kids should come to visit the National Museum of Mathematics because they will see an entire new world of math that they never knew existed. Most of the exhibits and the programs in the Museum are based on mathematics that doesn't get exposed to people unless they're majoring in math in university or in a college. What we've done is we've taken some of these coolest bits of math that most people don't get to see, and brought them down to a level that everyone can enjoy. We're showing you a world of math that maybe has been undiscovered by most people before.
What advice do you have for kids like me who have big dreams and goals?
My advice as the Executive Director of the National Museum of Mathematics is to make sure that you develop a comfort with mathematics. You don't have to major in math, you don't have to get a job that revolves around math, but every person in this country should be mathematically literate. Math is a broad term. By math I don't just mean arithmetic, knowing how to solve a problem that involves arithmetic operations like addition and subtraction, or multiplication and division. I think of math in a much larger way. Math is about how to think rationally, how to solve problems, how to figure out what's the best thing to do. If you are mathematically literate and you learn to think in this way, that will benefit you throughout your entire life. We hope that MoMath will help get you excited enough about math that you learn to develop those skills a little bit more.

Waverly here again! Thank you to Cindy and to MoMath for helping me realize that math is not only cool, but fun, too. I even made up an equation: Fun + Education=MoMath!
And yes, I'm way more excited about math than I was before I went to visit MoMath - check it out for yourself. You will love MoMath, and you can count on that!
For a full video interview with Cindy Lawrence and for more Kids' News, check out Kidsnewsnyc.com