Is the word “Discovery” found in the name of your museum? …or in your mission statement? Click here to play this video (0:09). A bit of math exploration & play can be so surprising. Rewarding. It’s fun to see nature and art in new ways… to make new connections. No time pressure. No paper and pencils… our eyes open to
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If you are a fan of museums, then you have seen something like this object before… probably dozens of times. This impressive artifact is a nocturnal from La Belle and it can be used to tell time at night by the positions of the stars. As historic artifacts and symbols of exploration and discovery, navigation tools like this one spark
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We love this video! When we partner with a museum or nature center we build the possibilities together. Some activities are “pop-ups.” Others are long lasting, like this sunclock. Some activities are outside… some are inside. “Gnomon” < Do you know this word? Megan uses it in the video. See the how this sunclock was built and how it’s
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Have you seen it? MathHappens was happy to support a San Francisco Bay Area stop for Matheatre’s Calculus the Musical. Xiaojie Zhang teaches calculus at Skyline High School in Oakland, California. It was because of Ms. Zhang’s enthusiasm (and a few speedy emails to her principal’s office) that Matheatre could make Skyline High a special stop on their 2020 tour. More
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Join us a fun Family Friday, 10 January 2020 at the National Museum of Mathematics in New York City! Pentagonal Pursuit: Solving a Century-Old Tiling Problem — Explore the many types of tessellating tiles and decorate your favorites. Take away stories, art and patterns to inspire more discovery at home. Register now to save your spot! Follow us on Instagram
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This summer the fractal fun just won’t stop! We met Mychal Threets, the Children’s Librarian at the Solano County Library’s Springstowne Branch, when he visited our booth at the Bay Area Makersfaire. Mychal sometimes uses coloring sheets as a fun way to extend the time families spend in the library after his popular StoryTime. He told us he wanted to give
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Math Happens… just about everywhere. This is a very old hoof gauge that we found on a trip to Sheridan, Wyoming. It looks like good luck and math mixed together. The arm of the hoof gauge moves up and down. The arrow points to the measure. A healthy angle for a horse hoof is approximately 54º. Many experienced farriers know
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“Your x’s and zero’s, and algebraic formulae, are rattling in my head like nails in a bag.” Ouch! An except From the Earth to the Moon, an 1865 novel by Jules Verne. Spoofing the mind-breaking calculations needed to construct a cannon capable of shooting a crew to the Moon. Fortunately, MathHappens is not alone in wanting to rewrite this classic
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What are tessellations? A repeating pattern of shapes that goes on forever without any gaps or overlaps. You can think of tiling a floor. Squares, triangles and hexagons are all shapes that tessellate. Mathematician Marjorie Rice discovered some very interesting polygons that tile. It is fun to color and move around all kinds of geometric shapes! See how these squares
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Finding the “M” in STEAM! Parents at Bird Rock Elementary in La Jolla, California partnered with MathHappens to include hands-on math and art activities as part of their STEAM Fest 2019. S.T.E.A.M. …Bird Rock Elementary has ALL the lettters! Tessellating polygons are fun to arrange in freehand tiling patterns or puzzling into wooden frames. You can find art in math…
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