The Hope Foundation of Palestine will be supporting a summer undergraduate research grant program for faculty and students at colleges and universities in the USA to produce high quality materials about mathematics of Islamic Civilization between the 8th and 16th centuries that are suitable to be used in the K12 education system in the USA. The grant will be housed within Mathematical Association of America HOM SIGMAA, with the start date of Summer 2023.
In the United States and other Western countries, middle, high school, and post-secondary students are seldom exposed to contributions to mathematics and science from non-western civilizations. As a result, the students may develop the inaccurate idea that mathematics and science have been developed almost entirely by the western civilization, and science is a western phenomenon. There is a great need to teach a more accurate narrative.
To address this problem, Drs. AbdelNaser Al-Hasan and Noah Aydin propose two initiatives: First: Al-Khwarizmi Paper Contest at the undergraduate level which will be launched in fall 2023. Second: Create a Clearing House that houses materials accessible to students in middle and high schools in the USA. Typically, a summer undergraduate research project costs in the neighborhood of $4000 per student and $2-3K per faculty. Both initiatives are supported by the MAA HOM-SIGMAA.
It is evident that many teachers/students in the K12 system in the USA are not aware of the existence of a remarkable Islamic civilization that made profound contributions to mathematics and sciences and was highly influential on the European Renaissance. This project will help introduce teachers/students in the K12 system in the USA to the Islamic Civilization in a positive way, through Islamic contributions to mathematics. Lastly, such a project will help reduce Islamophobia in the society.
This project has provided additional documentation in a DOCX file (projdoc.docx).
