The Magic of Numbers Workshop

At the Mission Hills-Hillcrest/Knox Library on October 8th, we hosted our number theory workshop! Attended by 20 girls, and led by Selene Wang, we explored concepts such as prime factorization, least common multiple, and greatest common denominator. We began with an introduction to number theory and our woman in STEM role model for this workshop, Julia Robinson. One participant commented, “cubing numbers was interesting because I haven’t learned it in school before”. After discussing prime numbers, we kicked off our first activity: the Sieve of Eratosthenes. Participants used the sieve to find all the prime numbers between 1 and 100. After trying to find one, the girls also discovered that there is no formula to generate prime numbers!

Our next topic was prime factorization. Participants learned how to use factor trees to find how numbers could be broken down into prime numbers. To conclude this section, we talked about the secrets behind birthday math tricks! Then, after a quick break for snacks, we resumed the workshop to learn about GCD (greatest common divisor) and LCM (least common multiple). The girls then used their new number theory knowledge to play trivia and the factor game! These were the most popular activities among the girls, with one explaining, “I liked the trivia because we could win prizes”. The girls had a great time learning all about the magic of numbers!