INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Each week on Community Link, Carolene Mays takes a look at an organization or business that is making a positive impact on the community.

This week, Mays was joined by Patrick Jones, an academic scholar with a doctorate in education and founder of Exponentia Prime.

Jones developed Exponentia Prime to transform math education and inspire future STEM professionals in urban communities.

“Exponentia Prime is an activity and a program that is meant to provide access to urban communities in advanced math because I believe advanced math is the gate to STEM careers we desire our children to have,” Jones said.

Jones shares his educational background with Mays, including how he got his start as a math teacher at a predominantly Black school.

“I was a math teacher for 10 years before (Exponentia Prime). I had a degree in computer science, did some things professionally in the STEM world, but became a teacher and loved it,” he said.

“I used to take kids to MATHCOUNTS competitions in Indianapolis, and the kids that I took were almost 100% Black. When I took them, they immediately saw that the competitive environment they were in had no Black children who looked like them. And that was concerning for them at first.

“So, I (then) decided to create competitions and activities so that kids in urban communities can feel and understand what it means to be engaged in advanced math.”

Jones adds that the need he saw had more to do with just Black kids competing, it also had to do with learning basic principles of math.

“You need the basic principles of math to engage in advanced mathematics and one of the things we just created (is) an ILEARN workbook for grades 3 – 4,” he said. “We wanted to make sure that they can engage in advanced math with basic skills.”

He also elaborates on the program’s key components of basic math learning, including a handful of storybooks where kids stand in the spotlight as STEM heroes.

“The storybook is called ‘Exponentia Prime.’ It’s about a young lady who’s a math genius who can transport herself between math worlds. We also have a storybook called ‘The Quantum Slugger,’ (which) is about two gentlemen who are engineers and they engineer a baseball bat so that they can hit more home runs.

“Kids learn principles of velocity, distance, and time, and then we look at that, we also then bring it into math circles. Math circles are an opportunity for kids to practice these competition and problem-solving skills,” he said.

Exponentia Prime’s next math competition was set for 9 – 11:30 a.m. July 6 at the Wheeler-Dowe Boys & Girls Club on 30th Street. The competition is for students K – 5, but Jones says the programs and math circles serve students K – 8.

To learn more about Exponentia Prime, watch the full interview above.