2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Engagement in Practice: Community Outreach Through Student-Led Math Circles

Since 2017, the [Mathematics Department] at [University] has been running an outreach initiative through which undergraduate STEM students provide mathematical enrichment for K–12 students (usually, students in grades 3-6) at local public schools and other community sites, such as a Boys & Girls Club or public library. Such enrichment programs, where mathematics is explored in an informal and collegial setting, are called math circles, and they are traditionally run by professional mathematicians.
Our outreach initiative is built on the idea that there are many university students who love mathematics and would enjoy teaching it to youth in an informal setting, but who are not prepared to manage logistical issues or develop lesson plans. At the same time, there are many university faculty members who would be interested in organizing a math circle for their community, yet lack the time or energy to lead meetings and enroll participants. Finally, organizations that serve youth may wish to offer them mathematics enrichment but lack domain-specific expertise. Thus, three parties join forces to create our math circles: university faculty members, who carry organizational load and prepare materials for meetings; STEM undergraduates, who lead math circle meetings; and community partners from local institutions that serve youth, who manage enrollment and provide a physical location for meetings. This division of labor allows our initiative to have a broad reach compared to math circle programs led by a university faculty member. In particular, it has allowed us to organize math circles at 3–5 different community partners every semester.
Our outreach initiative has evolved over the years. Since 2023, we have been motivated by a desire to improve the training of participating undergraduates and to systematically gather data about their experiences. Currently, we are running math circles via a two-semester community outreach program open to undergraduate students in the [Engineering School] at [University], who, as part of the program, enroll in a credit-bearing community engagement course. Students taking the course learn about math circles, extracurricular mathematics, as well as teaching and classroom management strategies, and they participate in mock math circle sessions. A few weeks into the course, the students then lead math circle meetings twice per week at a community partner site. As a follow-up to the course, students have the opportunity to continue leading math circles for a stipend for an additional semester.
In this paper, we discuss the organization of the community engagement course described above and our outreach initiative in general. In particular, we discuss the evolution of our initiative since its inception, the practice of running the community engagement course, building relationships with community partners, and feedback we received. We also discuss challenges, including securing funding, scheduling, and the preparation of appropriate content for each community partner, as well as the lessons learned from addressing these challenges. We believe that our model of engaging STEM undergraduates in order to conduct community outreach is transferable to other institutions of higher education.