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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Here’s an excerpt of a twitter conversation. Day before yesterday Aida wrote to get access to some of our files and ideas. Yesterday she made this amazing version of Napiers Bones that is in the National Archeological Museum in Madrid. Today I’m inspired by her project and want to know more about this version and I want to see that
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Women in Mathematics! Katherine Johnson calculated trajectories, parabolic and otherwise for NASA in the 1960s. Almost 70 years earlier Mary Boole invented curve stitching to teach the mathematical properties of parabolas to children. We made some really great foldable parabolas to connect to the work of both these women in math. Here’s the laser file – we cut the holes
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