About
Founded in the fall of 2014 by Philip and Lauren Siegel, MathHappens has been exploring ideas, options, strategies and partnerships to bring math into community conversations here in Austin, elsewhere in Texas, and in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, New York, California and more. In Spring 2022 we opened The MathHappens Math Room in a partnership with the Austin Nature and Science Center. In February 2023, MathHappens@Explora opened in Albuquerque, NM and in October 2023 we opened a space within the Children's Museum of Southern Minnesota in Mankato, MN. In summer 2024 we opened a second space in The Millennium Youth Entertainment Center in Austin, TX. Soon after we installed a program in the gallery behind the welcome desk at the Dallas Discovery Gardens.
Building on this success, we forged partnerships to bring our program and materials to The Works Children's Museum in Bloomington, MN and in partnership with SUMM an the Benjamin Banneker Society, at the Northwest African American History Museum in Seattle Washington.At all seven locations we offer access to the models and activities for the public on the weekends. These are spaces where the public can go in person, to use the hands-on, engaging math models and learning experiences that we have been bringing to events and programs hosted by informal education institutions since 2014. Our materials, installed in these many places can then be used at local math festivals, school and community events, in maker spaces, libraries, museums and public venues of all kinds. We are interested in collaborations to open more permanent learning spaces in more communities, and we support outreach projects by other educators that communicate mathematical ideas, engage diverse learner populations and create more public access through grants, collaborations, and an open exchange of ideas.
Affiliations and Collaborations:
City of Austin, Austin Nature and Science Center, Austin Public Library Central and Southeast Branches, Children's Museum of Southern Minnesota, Matheatre, University of Texas UTeach, UTeach Maker Program, Austin Museum Partnership, Austin ACCESS to Learning. STEM Santa Fe, Bridges to Math and Science, Breakthrough Austin, Math Circles of Houston, Public Math, Math4Love, Scott Kim, JRMF, Seattle Universal Math Museum (SUMM), AIM Math Communities.
Activities:
Staff, supply and facilitate the MathHappens Math Room, MathHappens @ The Children's Museum of Southern Minnesota and MathHappens@Explora; participate in the museum and community events in Austin throughout the year; train math teachers to use maker space tools to make their own math models; facilitate and fund field trips. Share ideas with the k-16 education community and the public through a "Math Ad" published in the Austin Chronicle and Orange Leader since 2020. Make and distribute selected models including the conic section model (over 5000). MathHappens is a founding partner in Fracture, a Mathematical Halloween Theater Experience
Mission:
Promote math literacy by creating and distributing math models and supporting development of mathematical learning experiences outside of the classroom in our public places and spaces.