Thai and Japanese high school students talk mathematics

In its efforts to combine international exchange activities with Japan's Super Science High School^* initiative, Tokyo Tech hosted its fourth mathematics workshop for students of Tokyo Gakugei University Senior High School and Thailand's Princess Chulabhorn's College Chiang Rai on April 19, 2018.

This year, "Let's Count" was led by Professor Kotaro Yamada from Tokyo Tech's Department of Mathematics and attended by 25 high school students — 13 from Tokyo and 12 from Chiang Rai. Discussions focused on different approaches to counting and grouping.

After a brief introduction to the nature and history of mathematics, Yamada placed six apples and six oranges on the table, and asked participants how they would group the fruits. This led to discussions on how to locate a specific circle on a coordinate plane and, after identifying the three required parameters, students moved on to share ideas on congruence and similarity.

The topic then shifted to triangles, during which students concluded that three vertices consisting of two parameters each are required to locate a triangle. Again, participants applied theorems they had learned in middle school to confirm triangle congruence and similarity, and examined how reflection, rotation, translation, and dilation affect triangle coordinates on a plane.

• Binary workshop held for Thai and Japanese high school students│Tokyo Tech News
• Researcher Profile | Tokyo Tech STAR Search - Kotaro Yamada