Published by Australian Mathematics Trust
This is an Australian site which provides information about nationally available mathematics enrichment opportunities for students. The Australian Mathematics Trust is a non-profit organisation providing a variety of publications and enrichment activities for school students. These include the hugely popular Australian Mathematics Competition for the Westpac Awards (catering for students in Years 3 to 12 and being held for the 30th time in 2007), the Mathematics Challenge for Young Australians, the Australian Mathematical Olympiad Program and the Australian Mathematics Teacher Enrichment Project.
Find out about events, activities and courses provided by the Trust, and gain access to the catalogue of books, journals and past competition papers. Suitable for middle primary and above.
Published by National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (US)
This site was created in the US as part of a campaign to increase public engagement with mathematics. With the goal of showing families the mathematics that middle school students are learning, it provides a useful collection of interesting mathematical challenges. An index is available if you are looking for problems with a specific mathematical context.
There are eighty challenges, each of which includes a question (with optional hints to help you get started), a complete solution and an extension of the initial problem called “Try This”. Each challenge also includes a description of some real-world uses of the mathematics involved and links to additional problems and things to think about. The site has interesting problems and an emphasis on how the mathematics presented is useful in our world. Suitable for upper primary/Junior secondary.
Published by the New Zealand Ministry of Education
This very useful site provides an animated interactive form of a ‘classic’ interchange problem. Support for students and teachers in using the applet is available in the 'Seminars' section of the NZMaths Info Centre
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Solving the problem involves working out how many moves are required to swap the positions of three brown frogs and three green frogs on a line of lily pads. A simpler version of the problem is presented if help is required, and when students succeed they are encouraged to extend and generalise the solution. Suitable for upper primary and junior secondary students.
Published by the NSW Department of Education and Training
An Australian site which aims to address the needs of country areas and remote students and which emphasises working mathematically, it has a good source of mathematical questions and challenges for students. It was established for NSW country primary schools, but participation of students from interstate and overseas is welcomed.
Activities include new questions every two weeks during school terms, and an archive of previous questions (together with feedback and sample students’ solutions). Tasks are categorised in four levels of difficulty. Students are encouraged to collaborate and to submit solutions for recognition and possible publication on the site. Suitable for early childhood to early secondary (NSW syllabus stages 1, 2, 3 and 4).
Published by Francis Su in the Harvey Mudd College Math Department (US)
This site is a wonderful source of fun and interesting mathematical snippets, many with presentation ideas and references. Students are able to explore a collection of ‘fun facts’ designed to generate interest, arouse curiosity and cause students to look at mathematics differently. They can create magic squares, do mind reading tricks or find new ways to multiply by eleven! A search capacity, which includes difficulty level, helps students find appropriate items. Suitable for secondary students and beyond.
Published by University of Cambridge (UK)
This website contains a (free) online mathematics club, appropriate for direct student access and also useful for teachers. New questions are published each month and past material is archived and searchable, making this a growing bank of excellent material.
Activities include questions, games and other enrichment resources (including supporting articles and notes), with solutions published the following month. It has access to online discussion forums and a thesaurus, and opportunities to submit solutions and to ask questions of Cambridge University mathematicians.
The site also has a variety of interesting puzzles and problems, new each month and graded for content level and degree of challenge. It is suitable for Lower/middle primary (content level 1), middle/upper primary (level 2), junior secondary (level 3) and above (levels 4 and 5).