A school in the city is holding a maths fair to dispel fear of the subject among the students.
The students of Modern High School for Girls have been solving sums outside their classrooms and playing games based on mathematical concepts at the maths fair that started on Monday.
The fair will end on Friday.
Other schools have been invited to the fair on the last day.
Students from classes VI to XII have been taking part in activities that “encourage them to take a fresh look at the subject and fuel their imagination”.
If nothing else, the children get to work out sums in a “stress-free environment”, a teacher said.
“The idea is not to think about maths as an exam paper but treat it as something that is part of one’s life. The element of fun has to be brought in each class,” said Devi Kar, director of the school.
Each day of the week, different classes are setting up activity stalls at Mathfinity and the rest of the classes get a period or two to try their skills there.
“Solving an equation in a classroom is difficult but it is fun in a fair,” said Class VIII student Avnee Budhraja.
“Through the game stalls, they have shown how we use maths every day in our lives without realising it. We tend to block them,” said principal Damayanti Mukherjee.
Ruchira Som, supervisor of the school’s mathematics department, said their target was to make the fair relevant for each student, with varied levels of difficulty.
“The students are choosing their stall depending on their interests and aptitude. The sums have been worked out with different levels of difficulty depending on the class and the aptitude of the students,” said Class XI girl Radhika Mitra.