abrdn have teamed up with Winning Scotland and Making Maths Count to provide an educational maths resource for children, as part of the 2021 Scottish Open.
Maths can be used to understand every aspect of golf, from the swing of the club to the flight of the ball. That is why the title sponsors of the Scottish Open, abrdn, together with the charity Winning Scotland and the Scottish Government’s Making Maths Count approach, are continuing to build upon a unique initiative to help encourage greater enthusiasm for maths amongst local school children, their parents and carers and the wider public.
Ahead of The Renaissance Club hosting the world’s best golfers at the Scottish Open in July (8-11), the sponsors are using the event as the perfect backdrop for local pupils to develop their maths skills in a fun, inclusive and exciting way. With the help of ‘mindset maths’ specialists, Winning Scotland, an education pack containing maths challenges and tasks relating to golf and the Scottish Open has been distributed to schools across Scotland for pupils to enjoy. Targeted at pupils between 7-11 years old, the resource is available to download online and contains fun and engaging mathematical challenges around lofts of clubs, yardages and course design amongst other elements of a sport that was born in Scotland.
As part of the project, pupils have the chance to design their very own golf hole and are encouraged to enter a competition, judged by mathematician Dr Hannah Fry, to use their arithmetic skills to come up with maths calculations and expressions to replace the regular 1-18 numbers displayed on the tournament’s pin flags. The winning entries will be used on course at the first day of the tournament itself. Five of the world’s top ten players, Jon Rahm, Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, Xander Schauffele and Tyrrell Hatton have already been confirmed to play in the event.
After hearing about the initiative, defending champion, Aaron Rai said “I use maths every day when I’m out on the course, and this is such a great way to make maths more fun and accessible. I really hope that lots of children get to use the pack and begin to understand how maths is used in every day life.”
Dr Hannah Fry, an ambassador of the project said: “All children should be able to approach maths with confidence and it’s important to transform the mind-set that influences our perceptions of who can and can’t be ‘good at maths’. You may not think it, but golf is full of physics and maths, so it's great to see Aberdeen Standard Investments and Winning Scotland use that to help young people understand that maths is a creative and engaging subject, with many transferable skills.”
Abrdn CEO, Stephen Bird, said: “Engaging with our local communities through our sponsorship of the Scottish Open is really important to us. As is the education and future aspirations of young people across Scotland, so it’s been great to give them a fun and interesting maths activity to do as part of the event. Initiatives of this kind raise awareness of the importance of these essential skills and it’s been a pleasure to work with Winning Scotland and the Making Maths Count group.”
The education pack – available to download from the Maths Week Scotland website - was put together by specialists from Winning Scotland. A charity that works with and supports partners to build confidence and resilience in Scotland’s young people. It is also part of Making Maths Count, a Scottish Government initiative to encourage greater enthusiasm for maths amongst children and young people, their parents and carers and the wider public.
Morag Arnot of Winning Scotland said: “We are delighted to support the Scottish Open by providing an education pack to help pupils engage with maths through a series of fun, golf related activities. By encouraging a positive attitude towards numeracy and its relevance to everyday life, this will help fulfil our charitable mission to empower all young people in Scotland to be ambitious, versatile and resilient.”
The Scottish Open will be the second Rolex Series event on the European Tour’s 2021 Race to Dubai, taking place from 8-11 July and for the third consecutive year at The Renaissance Club.
