April is Mathematics Awareness Month, and this year’s theme is “Mathematics and Sports.” It’s sponsored by the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics to promote the importance of math, and schools and organizations nationwide are participating by hosting presentations, competitions, and poster contests for students from elementary school through graduate school.

Wolfram Research is proud to support Mathematics Awareness Month again this year. To remind students everywhere that math can be fun, we have provided complimentary Mathematica for Students licenses to several competitions this month to be distributed as prizes, including these:

• Miami Dade College Annual High School Mathematics Competition
• University of Kansas Math Competition
• University of Nebraska at Omaha Student Presentations for Math Awareness
• Central Connecticut State University Intercollegiate Math Competition
• Genesee Community College Math Club Poster Contest

Sponsorship prize recipient Jacob Hurwitz recently provided some feedback regarding the complimentary Mathematica for Students license he was awarded. He wrote, “I’ve found that Mathematica is great when I just want to create a simple graph to put in my physics homework, or I can use its more advanced functions for school as needed. For instance, a few weeks ago in my sports statistics class, I envisioned a type of graph that’s a combination boxplot and lineplot—instead of turning towards Excel, I coded a Mathematica module to create this type of graph and then automate the creation of many of these.”

The “Mathematics and Sports” focus is an excellent tool for teachers to show the relevance of math in their students’ everyday lives. Sports are an exciting way for students to understand the applicability of math to select strategies, predict outcomes, and even determine athlete eligibility for participation in sports such as the Olympic Games. From goaltenders using an understanding of angles to reduce the amount of exposed net, to simulating sports seasons based on score distributions (like in the linked Demonstration), students can see that mathematics is at the core of sports.

Wolfram Research is proud to continue a long tradition of providing complimentary Mathematica for Students licenses as awards for math and science competitions. In addition to supporting the International Math and Physics Olympiads; American Regions Mathematics League; USA Mathematical Talent Search; Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology; and MATHCOUNTS, we support community and regional mathematics competitions to help foster an interest in mathematics for students everywhere. Please contact us to request Wolfram support of your own competition.