Last spring, the Johns Hopkins Math Club decided to
reinvent itself a little. Instead of being a
purely academic club, it also wanted to do some community
service. "We'd always done things like
training for math competitions for undergraduates, but we
hadn't done much outside the world of
college," said senior Jeffrey Lin, treasurer of the club.
"We were looking to branch out into other
activities."
The members started contributing training problem sets
to the Baltimore County Math League,
and then Lin found a way for the math club to branch out
more--virtually. One day he saw a link on the
JHU home page to a story about Cogito.org, a Web site
and online community for gifted middle and
high school students interested in math and science. The
site connects these students with peers
from around the world who share a passion for the two
fields, and with professionals already working
in various disciplines.
Cogito, Latin for "I think," evokes Descartes' famous
Cogito ergo sum, which means "I think,
therefore I am." Developed by the Johns Hopkins Center for
Talented Youth, the site launched in
December 2006 and currently has more than 3,000 registered
members from more than 45 countries.
Lin contacted Linda Brody, director of CTY's Study of
Exceptional Talent and the Cogito
project, and asked her how the Math Club could get
involved. She put him in touch with Karen Henoch-
Ryugo, Cogito's online community coordinator. "And it took
off from there," Lin said.
Cogito features interviews with experts, profiles of
young scientists, science news, Web
resources and searchable directories of summer programs,
competitions and other academic
opportunities. Most of the content is available to the
public, but members have access to interactive
features, including discussion forums.
The discussion forums are where the math club found
its niche. Henoch-Ryugo set up a special
forum for the club, and Kihyuk Hong, the group's president,
came up with a name: Fibonacci's Forums,
named for the Italian mathematician. Nearly every week,
Hong, Lin and vice president Joe Tsao posted
in Fibonacci's Forums new math problems for Cogito members
to solve, and the solutions for the
previous ones.
Lin was surprised at what occurred. "About five
minutes after we posted them, the kids were
posting answers. That was so surprising because the level
of math was so hard, I couldn't do some of
those problems," said Lin, a biomedical engineering major.
All in all, they posted close to 30 problems,
some of which they wrote themselves, and others that had
come from math competitions. They also
had a thread going called Name That Mathematician, with
them posting clues about a famous math
person and the members guessing who it was.
The success of Cogito depends on just this sort of
participation by scientists and
mathematicians — from college students to retired
professionals — to serve as guest speakers, resident
experts and site advisers.
The Johns Hopkins student involvement doesn't stop
with the Math Club. This month, the JHU
chapter of Engineers Without Borders will be interviewed
online by members about their work in
South Africa and Guatemala.
Moreover, many faculty members have participated in
the site. Biostatistician Francesca
Dominici from the School of Public Health was the very
first Cogito online interview, and since then,
nanoscientist Peter Searson, of the Whiting School; Louise
Prockter, of APL; geobiologist Hope
Jahren, of the Krieger School; bioethicist Debra Mathews,
of the Berman Bioethics Institute; and
stem cell researcher Doug Kerr, of the School of Medicine,
have either been interviewed or have
participated in a discussion forum. Andrew Feinberg, of the
School of Medicine, is slated for an
upcoming interview about the epigenetic basis of disease.
This year, the Math Club plans to expand its
involvement even further — the members have
begun organizing student participation beyond the math area
of the site. They posted an
announcement on an electronic bulletin board asking for
volunteers for Cogito, and so far, they've
recruited 30 to post two or three times a week in various
areas of math and science. Already they are
initiating discussions on finance and math, college life
and combinatorial games. They also plan to start
a book club where users can discuss books in all kinds of
math and science fields.
"I've never seen a site like this before, where such
talented kids can get together without being
pressured by homework and just talk about academics —
really talk," said Lin, a former CTY student
who participated in summer programs. "It makes me look back
and realize how much I would have liked
having this kind of virtual community."
Anyone interested in contributing to or participating
in Cogito.org should send an e-mail to
[email protected].
To take a look at the site, go to
www.cogito.org.
GO TO