I still need to track down “authorities” to verify, but this appears to be a real handwritten letter or speech written by a Robert Greuzbauer, a Texas surveyor about the VARA and Chain standards for measuring land. It gives a very clear description of the Vara standard and how it relates, or doesn’t relate to the Chains used elsewhere and
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The talk topic is Spiral Galaxies. We brought a variety of models and displays to the expo, reviewed proportions with the calipers, looked for the Golden Ratio in the ant, the zebra and people’s arms and hands. Next we looked at the pieces of Hurricane Sandy which are proportioned to the Golden Ratio. We used a clear spiral to confirm
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I really enjoyed the opportunity to guest lecture at Megan Raby’s Perspectives class this week. The class is all about relating history to math and science. Michelle Tat came with and we ran through the Navigation Field trip activities we created for the La Belle Exhibit at the Texas State History Museum. Alex Li also came to assist the afternoon
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On Saturday, Mardi Nott presented about math field trips with MathHappens at the AACTM Winter Conference. AACTM stands for Austin Area Council of Teacher of Mathematics, which is affiliated with the National Council of Teacher of Mathematics (NCTM). Our presentation slides are available here. Mardi presented about field trips she has done to the Austin Nature and Science Center, Harry
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We had a great program and group of students at our latest field trip at the Austin Nature and Science Center. On this field trip we started with a whole group activity where we simulated a Voronoi diagram. Each new participant has to find a path that is equidistant from the nearest two others. Next time we’ll find some shoe
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What a great way to start the new year! Mengyu Chen, a recent graduate of Vassar College signed on for our Parker Dewey Internship in December and I’m so glad she did. She did the intern reading, and spent some time with some calipers and other models. Then she visited at least two museums. She combined her knowledge of
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We had a wonderful, productive Fall 2018 here at MathHappens and we celebrated the end in style! We went to Whole Foods to eat and ice skate! Present were Michelle, Ben, Paola, Josephine, Halle, Rusheel, Abdulkarim, and Lauren. Some big achievements from this fall were: Participating in Austin Museum Day with activities at FIVE different museum locations Going to the
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Very excited to participate in this conference. Lauren, Abdul, Paola and Ben all attended and also led sessions and learned a lot about this new format. Discussion based, the sessions are facilitated rather than led. Project based learning, maker spaces, equity and math were all on the topic lists. Teachers were really interested in the Napier’s Bones models we
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Using an arts and crafts approach, we can teach a classic mathematics technique with low stress. We are providing the demonstration kit, a magnetic starter triangle and a simple straight edge (also magnetic) in sets of five as a door prize at this weekend’s Edcamp at Region 13, an UnConference for educators. We hope that the educators who win the kits
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Exhibiting a Globular Map, an “Innovative” Mercator Map (1500s) and a Modern Map to show the way maps changed over time for purposes of navigation. The Globe shows us the true proportions of the continents, and the 3d printed Stereographic shell shows how translating a sphere to a flat surface can cause the kinds of distortions the Mercator map. Ben,
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