Scientific initiation for 120 students in Paraguay

SCIENTIFIC INITIATION WITH EMPHASIS IN MATHEMATICS FOR YOUNG TALENTS PROGRAM

 November, 2018

SCIENTIFIC INITIATION WITH EMPHASIS IN MATHEMATICS FOR YOUNG TALENTS PROGRAM

Thanks to the support of our donors from GlobalGiving to the Project “Scientific Initiation for 120 students in Paraguay”, who contributed with a part of the funds needed for our activities. This program aims to enhance the opportunities for young talents who are, definitely, the most valuable resource of our country.

It is the first and only program with these features in the country; it has national scope and proven international effectiveness and has been conducted continuously since 1989. This program consists of three main steps:

1) Detection and motivation through National Mathematical Olympiads;

2) Academic and Scientific Training;

3) Incentive to Excellence.

The long-term impact intended with the program, is the continuous training of Paraguayan professionals in science and technology, which will be the engine for the social and economic development of Paraguay.

After the last report (June 2018), the annual courses continued with good results in 10 cities around Paraguay. They ended last October. During the last months 302 students attended to the program. It should be noticed that 150 students from public schools had a complete scholarship from ITAIPU Binacional (OMAPA´s Major Donor). Funds from GlobalGiving donors were used to give some partial scholarships to students from private schools, allowing their attending to courses. These donations are extremely useful and really help us to achieve our goals. We hope to keep receiving the support of our donors, to whom we thank for their support.

During the classes, different types of problems are presented to the students:

-      Motivational problems, that are chosen to motivate students in the issue of solving math Olympiad problems.

-      Challenge Problems: those that need some theoretical tools that often they don’t have. With the instructors’ experience those new concepts are presented and developed through these well-developed problems.

-      Additional problems: usually outside the main theme, in order to promote the interaction between the instructor and the students. They are accompanied by different types of materials, such as: cards, balls, etc. It usually is a more playful and open problem.

The “Math Laboratory”, introduced in 2016 in our academic program have achieved good results, so we will continue offering this course to students.

The next upcoming event is the summer courses, for one week in December 2018. The most talented students from the national Mathematical Olympiad are invited, and we expect to receive many students along the country.

In addition, the courses’ contents are a support for the training of our students who compete in Mathematical Olympiads. The objective of our program is to encourage the study of mathematics throughout the country, and a visible result of this work are the performance of our students on International Olympiads. Last August, the Cono Sur Mathematical Olympiad was organized by Brasil, and our students got one Bronze Medal, one Honorable Mention and the first price of “Olympic Girls”, given for the highest best performace of a girl during the Olympiad. Then, Iberoamerican Mathematical Olympiad was organized by Spain and Portugal, and our students got one bronze medal and three Honorable Mentions. Later on, last October was held the Paraguayan Mathematical Olympiad, where most of our young students had the better performance.

Last but not least, we are proud to show the donors the result of the effort of many years of work with extraordinary young people, with whom we had the privilege of sharing study hours. Below are two videos that we share with you. This is the way we change the lives of outstanding young people: providing opportunities.

Video 1:

https://www.facebook.com/omapa.org.py/videos/246941729227031/

Video 2:

https://www.facebook.com/omapa.org.py/videos/159618404985691/

Finally, we encourage our donors to follow our activities through the organization web page:

http://www.omapa.org.py/

as well as the social networks:

Twitter : @OMAPApy

Facebook: https://es-la.facebook.com/omapa.org.py

Links:

• Video 1
• Video 2

• 10_OMAPA__GlobalGiving_Report_November_2018.pdf (PDF)
  

Thanks to the support of our donors from GlobalGiving to the Project “Scientific Initiation for 120 students in Paraguay”, who contributed with a part of the funds needed for our activities. This program aims to enhance the opportunities for young talents who are, definitely, the most valuable resource of our country.

It is the first and only program with these features in the country; it has national scope and proven international effectiveness and has been conducted continuously since 1989. This program consists of three main steps:

1) Detection and motivation through National Mathematical Olympiads;

2) Academic and Scientific Training;

3) Incentive to Excellence.

 The long-term impact intended with the program, is the continuous training of Paraguayan professionals in science and technology, which will be the engine for the social and economic development of Paraguay.

 After the last report (January 2018), the first summer course of 2018 was held the first week of February. The activities were developed in Asunción as well as in another 8 inland cities. 248 students attended to this summer course, 127 of which received full scolarships from Itaipu Binacional. GlobalGiving donors’ funds were used to give partial scholarships to some of the 121 remaining students.

 During the classes, different types of problems are presented to the students:

 -      Motivational problems, that are chosen to motivate students in the issue of solving math Olympiad problems.

-      Challenge Problems: those that need some theoretical tools that often they don’t have. With the instructors’ experience those new concepts are presented and developed through these well-developed problems.

-      Additional problems: usually outside the main theme, in order to promote the interaction between the instructor and the students. They are accompanied by different types of materials, such as: cards, balls, etc. It usually is a more playful and open problem.

In addition, the courses’ contents are a support for the training of our students who compete in regional and International Mathematical Olympiads. The next two Mathematical Competitions are the International Mathematical Olympiad (around 110 countries) and the Cono Sur Mathematical Olympian (8 countries).

 It is important to clarify that the funds obtained from Globalgiving are not used to finance the participations in these Olympiads. However, they are useful for the preparation of the students, and therefore to improve the performance in these international competitions.

Please notice that for the execution of the Scientific Initiation with Emphasis in Mathematics for Young Talents Program, OMAPA provided its own funds together with the donations of Itaipu Binacional, Conacyt and GlobalGiving. These donations are extremely useful and really helpful to achieve our goals. We hope to keep receiving the support of our donors, to whom we thank for their support.

We encourage our donors to follow our activities through the organization web page:

http://www.omapa.org.py/

as well as the social networks:

Twitter: @OMAPApy

Facebook: https://es-la.facebook.com/omapa.org.py

• 9_OMAPA__GlobalGiving_Report_June_2018.pdf (PDF)