Based on our experience in STEM programs over the past couple of decades, it's clear to us that there's very little M in STEM – with that morsel of math generally being used in service of science or computer science. In most cases, a teacher or mentor just tells the students the math they should use, perhaps with some hand-waving, and they incorporate it into their projects.

Some people put the M under the STE, indicating that math is actually the basis of it all, but often that just promotes the notion that math is a utilitarian subject, a tool for solving other types of problems. There is none of the sort of creative and often deep mathematical thinking we promote and teach in mathematical circles, just more blind implementation of techniques and algorithms. Standard approaches don't encourage (and sometimes actually discourage) mathematical thinking.

In this project, we're working with students to help them take the mathematical discoveries arrived at in math circle (or similar) settings, and explore, visualize, and apply them, using computer modeling, analysis, and programming tools. This approach could just as well be used to investigate mathematics that leads into investigation in other areas of science; the key point is that by starting with, and staying grounded in, the mathematical exploration, a deeper understanding of the physical or computational systems is possible.

We presented our current work in this project on June 2^nd, at the 2017 NM STEM Symposium in Albuquerque, NM. For the presentation and links to the supporting materials, see The Missing "M" in STEM: A Math Circles & Modeling Approach.