The Big Poster Competition
Theme: ‘Everyone Counts’
Students across Australia are invited to participate in a Big Poster Competition to raise awareness of the importance of mathematics in our lives. A selection of entries will be on display at the ICME-15 Congress in Sydney, July 7–14, 2024.
Download a PDF copy of The Big Poster Competition flier.
| Categories | Prizes |
| Primary, Years K to 2 | Winner: $50 Runners-up: 2 @ $30 each |
| Primary, Years 3 & 4 | Winner: $50 Runners-up: 2 @ $30 each |
| Primary, Years 5 & 6 | Winner: $50 Runners-up: 2 @ $30 each |
| Secondary, Years 7 & 8 | Winner: $100 Runners-up: 2 @ $50 |
| Secondary, Years 9 & 10 | Winner: $200 Runners-up: 2 @ $50 |
| Secondary, Years 11 & 12 | Winner: $300 Runners-up: 2 @ $100 |
Judging Criteria
- 30% Communicating the messages that counting is a universal activity and/or everyone has value.
- 30% Originality of design and visual impact including suitable and catchy title.
- 30% Mathematical ideas relevant to the age group.
- 10% Balance of images and text.
Suggestions and starting points for your poster
Please note that the age groups here are not prescriptive and the ideas could be adapted for any age group.
- For younger age groups: How many arms on a starfish? How many pets do your friends have? How long can you stand on one leg? How many brothers and sisters do you have? How many great great… grandparents do you have?
- For older primary age groups: How do you count in another language? How many snakes (sugar ones, not real ones), stretch for one kilometre? How can you cut cakes of different sizes and shapes so that everyone at a birthday party counts (everyone is treated fairly)? How many bus routes are there in your town or city, and how are they numbered? How many colours are there and how do painters code their hues? How do you use an abacus? Are some numbers luckier than others? What counts in music, and why? How do you count in different number bases? Who in your class or family is best at subitizing? (This means recognizing the number of objects in a group without actually counting them.)
- For Junior secondary: How did people count in past times? How do you count your pocket money? What is an efficient way to count a pile of cash in notes and coins? How many sweets of different kinds are there in packets and is it always the same? How do you count scores in your favourite sport, and was it always done like that? What about card games and board games? What sites in the game Monopoly count for more? How many edges and faces on the regular solids? What about semi-regular ones? How many people have ever lived on the Earth? Could you count to infinity?
- For older secondary: How do we count the stars in the sky? Does everyone get counted in the Census? How do you count the number of number plates that are possible? How do you count the number of ways to sit around a table? How do you count your chances at winning Lotto etc? How many ways to visit cities when on a bus tour? How many pieces do you get when you cut a pizza up with straight cuts? How many things get counted in the Stock Exchange? How do you count for a stock-take in a shop? How do barcodes count?
Submissions for the Big Poster Competition
All submissions must be digital files. PDF files are best and must be smaller than 4 MB.
Submission link: https://tinyurl.com/mr2unm6x
Closing date: midnight on Friday June 7, 2024.
Need more info? Send an email to: [email protected]
Big Poster Competition Rules
- The purpose of the competition is to raise awareness of mathematics in Australian schools and families.
- The theme of the competition is ‘Everyone counts’. Posters should address this theme, interpreting it as ‘Everyone engages in counting’ or ‘Everyone has value’, or both.
- Posters must have a title. Catchy and imaginative wins here!
- Posters must be original in design and any text or images copied from other sources must be referenced on the poster itself. Better still – make it all original.
- Posters must not contain any names or images identifying students who made them or of the teachers or school or parents of the students.
- Students in schools or home-schooling anywhere in Australia are eligible to enter voluntarily.
- Posters are to be submitted via completing an online form—see the link above.
- The person submitting the form must be from a teacher or the parent of a home-schooling student.
- The closing date is midnight on Friday June 7, 2024.
- Students may participate as individuals, or as teams of up to four students. Teams must be from the same year group or year grouping (K&1&2, 3&4, etc)
- Each teacher must ensure that the team has the permission of the school to participate.
- Posters must be able to be printed on a single A1 one-sided sheet. (841mm by 594 mm), in landscape or portrait orientation. They can be made on paper and then photographed or scanned, or made on a computer.
- The poster must be legible if printed out on A1 paper for viewing on a wall. Font sizes must be no smaller than 10 pt.
- Posters must not contain any kind of offensive material or any images not suitable for public display. Such posters will not be included for judging and certainly not be displayed.
- A selection of posters will be displayed at the International Conference Centre (ICC) in Sydney, during the ICME-15 conference, 7-14 July, 2024. Other selections may be displayed at the University of Technology Sydney and/or the National Maritime Museum in the months around the conference. (approximately May-July, 2024). If printed out, these posters are not available for collection or return to the students. Other posters may be used for promotional material for ICME-15 or the AAMT without any payment.
- The judges decisions will be final. Judges will be appointed by the competition organisers and may include academic and school personnel, and university students.
- The Judging Criteria is listed above, and there is a list of suggestions.
Sponsors
Thank you to our sponsors: AAMT and UTS, Science
