Have you ever heard of SK Day? SK is an amazing female mathematician named Sonia Kovalevsky. Kovalevsky was born in Moscow, Russia, in 1850 and was the first woman to earn a doctorate in mathematics. The UofA hosted middle and high school students virtually for SK Day this year to encourage young women to study mathematics.

I attended the Zoom meeting about mathematics on SK Day. Team members from the UofA delivered a shirt and supplies to our homes prior to the event!

We began our Zoom with a welcome and keynote address. We also enjoyed hearing from two guest speakers, Professor of Mathematics Dr. Erika Camacho and graduate student Alicia Dominguez, who shared their journey learning math. In addition to the speakers, I participated in two workshop breakout rooms where we created math related crafts.

In the first breakout room I made a Mobius strip. We cut a strip of paper and drew a colored line on one side and did the same thing on the other side. Twisting our paper an even number of times produced two smaller pieces of paper; but twisting it an odd number of times creates Mobius Strip! Then we taped both ends of our twisted paper strip together.

In the second breakout room I played a game that involved dice. You would take two white dice shaped cubes and number their sides one through six on specific sides. Everyone took turns rolling their dice. The goal of the game was to reach 100 points first. You were allowed to roll your two dice as many times as you wanted. But if you rolled a one on either of your dice then it was the next person’s turn and you lost the points that you got that round. If you rolled a one on both of your dice then your entire score reset to zero.

For girls who enjoy math, I recommend that they attend SK Day next year. I enjoyed it and plan to attend again.