Scientific progress and science teaching:
Basic knowledge, interdisciplinary and ethical issues

Rally Mathematics without Borders

Europe (and eventually throughout the world)

Mathematics without borders is a European and international contest addressed to all kinds of students of 14-15 years of age in France and abroad. The guidelines were set in 1989 in Alsace. Today, the contest is composed of teams from all over the world. In 1998, 23 countries and 14 languages were engaged with 82,000 students and 3,150 classes. Therefore, the project is, not only an opportunity of drawing together the schools and the countries of the world, but also of opening ourselves to the other people's languages.

In each concerned region, several rallies are proposed during the school year. The activity can be done outside the schools in two parts. First, a preparatory mock test, which is a wide range of exercises, including at least one that must be written in a language other than the students' native one. The class is organized in teams in order to solve the exercises in one hour and thirty minutes and they hand in one answer sheet per student. A final rally is organized in Marseilles, where each of the qualified classes (either by merits or random-like) is represented by a three-people team. An Internet creative exercise of Mathematics without borders will be proposed every month.

The rally's aim is that of making mathematical exercises amusing to everyone, in connection with all the partners involved in this discipline. It also allows the development a healthy kind of emulation which attracts children. Another objective is to carry out an in situ dynamics between the institutions and the math teachers.
On the other hand, the central subject of the contest which is "creativity and mathematics" allows and favors an opening toward other disciplines: sculpture and mathematics, music and mathematics, poetry and mathematics, are the highlighted subtopics.

M. Rémy JOST
Rally Mathematics without Borders Scientific and Cultural Association
Tel : +33 4 42 92 27 27
Fax :+33 4 42 60 86 05
E-mail : ce.mat.jost@ac-aix-marseille.fr
Web site: http://pedagogie.ac-aix-marseille.fr/MSF/index/index.html

Institutional Partners
Institut en Recherches Mathématiques (Marseille, France)
Istituto professionale di stato per l'industria e l'artigianato (Italy)
Woolwich polytechnic school (United Kingdom)
Ministerium für Bildung, Wissenschaft und Weiterbildung Rheinland Pfalz (Allemagne)

Financial Partners
Crédit Mutuel Méditerranée (France)
Conseil Régional PACA (France)
Conseil général 13 (France)

The project, at a worldwide scale, was launched for the first time in 1998.

Pedagogical evaluations are periodically carried out and spread out on Internet.