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During the early twentieth century, the idea that children should spend time at play or in school, rather than working outside the home, led to toys that encouraged learning. At mid-century, a large school-aged population and Russia’s successful launch of Sputnik I in 1957 (the first satellite to successfully orbit the Earth), triggered an urgency for new, more rigorous mathematical curricula in the United States. Advocates of the “New Math” movement encouraged learning through discovery rather than just memorizing methods of solving problems with the goal of creating a new generation of scientists and mathematicians. Today, STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) teaching integrates four disciplines into a program offering practical instruction with “real-world” applications. Even so, universal mathematics literacy remains an ongoing challenge. See “Mathematics: Vintage and Modern” on display, post-security, in Terminal 2 and online at: https://bit.ly/MathAtSFO This image was posted on April 11, 2022.