BETONMATH Politecnico di Milano (Polisocial award)

Marco Verani

Chiara Andrà, Domenico Brunetto, Nicola Parolini

April 2022

October 2015

https://betonmath.polimi.it/

BetOnMath is a ‘civil mathematics’ project and stems from the consideration of the dramatic increase of gambling in Italy, and of how this phenomenon is rooted in a widespread mathematical illiteracy. The aim of the research is to develop a training path targeted at calculating probabilities, which is innovative, certified, and available to all secondary school teachers who are interested in its use within educational programmes. The path is designed so as to undermine some common gambling strategies, by bringing out the probabilistic concepts underlying gambling, and the criticalities (and relative risks) of some typical erroneous decision- making mechanisms, often activated in conditions of uncertainty. The expected result is the improvement of the educational service provided by the school system, enhancing its role as a preventive vehicle relating to this social problem.