All this week Troy University‘s Department of Mathematics has held a camp designed to get girls more interested in math and math-related career fields the camp is using a variety of different activities to show how math applies in the real world.

“I think that what’s really good about the camp is that they’re able to see real world applications of math and see unexpected places where it just pops up in everyday life that they may not have ever thought of before,” says Chair of the Troy University Math Department Dr. Ken Roblee. “Hopefully that’ll get the their minds thinking okay well where where else can it be applied or maybe I can study this math more.”

Applying math in real world situations is something that is emphasized at the camp. Campers complete various activities and exercises designed to help them recognize applications.

“One thing we’re doing is in this session is we’re looking at map colorings and they’re seeing how that they can use some math to color the different countries,” says Roblee. “Nobody may have ever thought of that before but mathematicians did.”

For the full story watch Simon’s report.