Stanford Middle School Scholars Program - Real-Life Applications to Mathematics(Online)

Stanford Middle School Scholars Program is open to low-income students currently in grades 6 or 7 who reside in and attend school in the United States. Scholars are required to attend both the summer and academic year components of the program. Applicants should be interested in or planning to attend a college preparatory, academically rigorous high school. In this course Scholars will connect mathematics with real-life examples. Math skills will be introduced and reviewed in connection with cryptography and financial mathematics. We’ll start with decoding and encoding early types of codes like Caesar’s Cipher. Using modular arithmetic, we will cover Vigenere’s Cipher to Public Key Encryption, an introduction to the RSA cryptosystem. Scholars will also discuss financial mathematics, such as interest rates. For example, we’ll ask what is the real cost of merchandise when you buy something with a credit card? What is the power of compounding when you are investing? What is a credit score? By the end of the course, Scholars will be comfortable visualizing and solving many real-life math problems