du Pont Youth
At du Pont Youth, we focus on providing innovative mathematics education through advanced modeling techniques for middle and high school students.
Middle Maths
Middle Maths is a collection of 48 illustrated narratives based on the saga of three school classmates as they solve the dramas of being eleven. The scope of the episodes follows normal standards for middle grades, including numbers and computation, functions, geometry and algebra concepts.
Graphic characters have shown to be attractive and effective by engaging students -- consciously or unconsciously – with illustrated images using realistic language and behavior.
Our problems are designed to require students to translate an authentic situation into a mathematical representation and then interpret the results back in context, or in other words, use mathematical modeling.
MiddleMaths is published in formats available to students, parents and teachers complete with illustrated storyboards and explanations.
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International Competitions
dPY offers four annual contests consisting of authentic problems with complex situations, more math than you need to solve them, and different paths to solutions, if one exists at all! In other words, many would consider these to be wicked problems with incomplete information, tradeoffs, and no single correct answer.
These are team-based competitions requiring contestants to solve a single problem within ten days. Solutions include narratives, calculations, charts, drawings, whatever the team (or individual contestant) feels is the best evidence. Impartial judges look for creativity, advanced problem solving and mathematical modeling.
dPY uses a separate website to manage these competitions and awards three levels of participation: novice, apprentice and master. Unlike other contests these awards come with personal notes from judges and student teams are rewarded by being posted on a never-ending ticker tape on the bottom of the contest webpage.
About du Pont Youth
dPY is a nonprofit dedicated to advancing mathematical modeling as the key to a rigorous mathematics education for middle and upper school students. Much of school mathematics has historically emphasized well-structured exercises that reward procedural imitation. While effective for introducing skills, these approaches alone do not prepare students for complex decision-making. These exercises are well-structured to increase the likelihood that novice students with little understanding can achieve success. This leads to the false notion that more structure will lead to greater student success which in turn leads to higher achievement. Unfortunately, we have seen that it does not, but we have not changed strategy.
duPont Youth produces ill-structured problems (episodes) using authentic scenarios, multiple paths to solutions, and uneven importance of information, which requires students to justify and defend their assumptions. To attract middle grade students, Alecos Papadatos (Logicomix) creates vivid, colorful drawings inspired by true mathematicians -- a brother and sister who trekked across America to win a national mathematics competition.
Our Founders
du Pont Youth was founded through a collaboration between an educational leader in mathematical modeling and an internationally recognized visual storyteller, united by a shared belief that young students are capable of serious, creative thinking when given authentic problems.
James King
James King holds both graduate and undergraduate degrees in Mathematics from the University of Delaware where he was a National Science Foundation Fellow, a DuPont Scholar and a TA in both computer science and mathematics. He is the author of Mathematics for Talented (or Just Plain Curious) Kids and Lucy: The Puzzle of the Vanishing Kittens, with Alecos Papadatos. Over his twenty-year teaching career, he has served as lead mathematics instructor at independent day schools in New York City, Indiana, and Oregon. For several years he was a Title 1 Mathematics Specialist for two school districts in Maryland, where he oversaw a performance-based mathematics program for thirty schools, seventy-five faculty members, and three thousand students. He also has served on the Boards of Harlem School of the Arts (NYC) and Shattuck St. Mary's School (Faribault MN).
Alecos Papadatos
Alecos Papadatos studied Economics at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and then Philosophy at the University of Sorbonne. His passion and artistic talent for story-telling through sketches and drawing turned into his profession. He designed and illustrated the graphic novels Logicomix, Democracy, and Aristotle, in collaboration with a variety of brilliant writers and publishers. In 2023, Alecos set up a training program for young people in Greece on Animation Storyboarding, a course designed to help young professionals promote their projects and spread their wings abroad. Alecos brings problem-solving to life in the Wicked contests and Middle Maths projects.
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