Help Fund the Future of Math Education

Alternative Donation Link 

Hello! My name is Swetha, founder of Melodies for Math(fiscally sponsored by Hack Club Bank). We are an educational initiative run by and for students with a goal of making math more relatable, engaging, fun, and creative. We do this through explaining math through songs and other artistic elements, while building community.

Our YouTube Channel 

 

The 21st century faces some of the worst problems in human history, and appreciating the power of STEM is critical to solving those problems. However, many public school educational systems have gaps in their teaching methods that turn people away from math. This is a huge problem across the United States and even worldwide. 60% of 4th graders and 66% of 8th graders did not reach the Math Proficiency Level in 2019 (according to the NAEP) and 60% of ACT test takers did not reach math proficiency in 2018. This means that more and more students find themselves unprepared to tackle the biggest problems that humanity will ever face.

 

Math education has been relatively stagnant for a long time and that needs to change. The curriculum puts more emphasis on the answers instead of the process. Since math is cumulative, it builds on previous material, and if a student is lost in the beginning, they will continue to feel lost. Math education needs to be structured and exciting, in order to motivate students to learn and become problem solvers. That's where Melodies for Math comes in.

 

Math is more than just a series of numbers. It is a language and a creative energy that can be applied in so many more ways than what we were taught to believe. It's just as irrational as it is rigid and just as much artistic as it is scientific. In this way, math is musical. Math and music have so many parallels so I thought it would be a good idea to teach math through music. Music brings happiness and satisfaction to many, and we want to transfer that to math with each educational song we write.

 

When I started M4M a year and a half ago, I merely uploaded 50 second calc videos every week but since then, the initiative expanded to have a team of 10+ other students writing and publishing math songs and animations to youtube(1.78K+ subscribers) and tiktok(65.5K followers) as well as a 600+ member community and an app/game on the way.

As we hope to expand to include new video styles and new programs,  here is what the funding will be used for:

- financially compensate my team members interested in working full time(including myself). This would allow Melodies for Math to bring on dedicated people to create and produce music for new youtube and tiktok playlists like geometry, algebra 2, precalculus and calc, while even hiring web designers/developers and game designers to code our upcoming game. 

-  get better microphones and recording equipment in order to improve production quality on the songs, tiktoks, and other youtube videos

- invest in Canva Pro, Logic Pro X, and Adobe Premiere Pro for myself and our video editors/designers so that they can create seamless videos with better features for our online platforms.

- Run ads on Instagram to grow our presence there in addition to tiktok and YouTube (Instagram is our worst platform at the moment)

- purchase Discord Nitro so that our online server members can share footage of their math problems that contains more storage(and submit to us videos that we can feature on our channel). On the free version, files sent through discord can only be 8MB , and that is very restricting. 

- obtain an Apple Developer Account under the Melodies for Math name where we can release our upcoming app and games, and we will renew it every year. 

- if we still have money left, we can use it to fly out team members to various pitch contests as well as speak with potential partners and donors. 

 

Please donate as soon as possible to help us continue helping students for free, and share this with others who can help.

 

~Swetha from Melodies for Math