Let’s continue the tradition of service to education, support our students and learners of all ages in mathematics by offering free learning resources to the Austin community, support cross disciplinary programs, create and use hands on interactive models. A great opportunity is on the table. The Pease School opened in 1876 and served Austin as an elementary school for 144
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We love to come out to this museum! Its side garden is home to one of our first outdoor installations, the Pythagorean Tables. Together they represent the 3-4 -5 triangle classic, but also each table tells a math story of its own. The 3 x 3 is a Penrose Stair, the 4 x 4 is subdivided to 8 x 8
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At Austin Museum Day 2021, MathHappens hosted a suite of activities at the Pythagorean theorem tables led by Naila Najiyeva, Laila Cook, Quan Nguyen, and Rashell Soria. Visitors were able to see the Pythagorean Theorem Proof and the Sum of Odd Numbers proof. At the tables, they also saw the Penrose stairs and a modern day application of it.
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We are so excited to be back in person this year for Austin Museum Day! This year we will be hosting activities at two locations: Austin Nature and Science Center and Neill-Cochran House.
This is a great example where mathematicians applied some creative thinking to solve a very real world problem. It is Abraham Wald’s Survivorship Bias problem. To help explain the sequence of concepts that lead to his insight, we made some wooden planes to help visualize the problem, and the solution. We start out thinking about the planes that come back
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George Washington Carver Museum is hosting Black History Month Kid’s Day on Saturday, March 27th, 2021. They will be hosting the event live via Zoom sessions with special guests and activities. This year’s theme is the Black Family: Representation, Identity, and Diversity. You can RSVP for the event here. MathHappens interns, Viyang Shah and Anh Nguyen, worked together to create
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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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In 2019, we brought our suite of Navigation Math to New York to share how we relate math to Texas History and the voyage of La Belle which is on exhibit at the Texas State History Museum. Files to make our version of the Parallel Ruler are here. Files to make our version of the Compass Rose are here. Participants
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Elizabeth Lay, Claire Steffen and I had the opportunity to present a webinar through the Texas Historical Commission today. We discussed ways that museums can enhance visitor experiences with math, showed a variety of examples of math activities at museum locations and talked about our process in developing connected activities. Our Presentation Slides are here The Handout Recording Hosted by
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