The Exploratorium created The Math Explorer for leaders who run afterschool programs for middle school youth. Why? Because more middle school kids would like math if they learned it the Exploratorium way. Because turning off to math closes off career paths. Because we want kids to see how math can be useful, interesting, and (dare we say it?) fun.

The Math Explorer has games for kids who like playing, crafts for kids who like making things, science experiments for kids who like to experiment. And for leaders, The Math Explorer has clear, simple explanations of math that you never learned (or you’ve forgotten).

Here are a few sample activities from The Math Explorer.

The free Adobe Acrobat Reader is needed to view and download some of the Leader Instructions for these activities.