Educator Night at The Thinkery
MathHappens Interns Josephine Sheng and Viyang Shah had the opportunity to try out an activity on Freese’s Dissections at The Thinkery’s Educator Night on October 17th, 2019. They had a great time interacting with educators in the Austin area and demonstrate to them how math can be approachable and fun. Some even said they’d leave their personalized puzzles at their
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Great time presenting the 15 Tessellating Pentagons to the UT Math Circle
No paper, no pencils, just working with the shapes. We had a ball! Thank you for inviting us and providing a great meal Dr. Jennifer Austin! Teachers got to take home a set of about 15 of their favorite type. Finding the types began in 1900 with Hilbert’s challenge and ended in 2017. Its a great story.
MathHappens @ TEKSCon Showcase 2019 July 30
At the Showcase you can meet Elizabeth Lay, MathHappens’ Program Manager who is developing an innovative new unit. MathHappens has obtained an original manuscript written by Texas surveyor Robert Creuzbauer that details a dual system of land measurement standards unique to Texas. The new unit will connect Texas History and Mathematics curricula addressing TEKS for both math and history.
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How Tall is the Flagpole- Using mirrors to find Proportions CAMT 2019
Introduction We ask our students to imagine a huge variety of scenarios in math class: trains approaching each other, roller coasters, boats sailing into the wind, buying ice cream, baking cakes, filling vases, sharing pizzas and on. But our students come from a wide variety of backgrounds, with very different life experiences and may not be able to relate to
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CAMT Presentation July 10!
We are excited to bring two backpacks full of MathHappens goodies for door prizes. Paola Garcia and I are co-presenting a session with star Austin High math teacher Mardi Nott. Participants are going to look into each others eyes and discover the power of geometry to analyze light reflections, using similar triangles to reveal the height or distance of objects
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UTeach STEM Educators Conference
MathHappens participated in the playground where we had an opportunity to show our models, and debut the complete set of Tessellating pentagons as well as Penrose tiles. In addition we offered a session on working with the museum community to combat math misery (presentation slides here), and build a sense of purpose and community in math class. And we moderated
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Mardi Nott Presents at AACTM
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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Region XIII Ed Camp – Unconferencing
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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Educator Night!
This evening we headed to the Thinkery which is hosting an event for educators. MathHappens interns Paola Garcia, Josephine Sheng and Ben Duong provided information on three field trips that will help teachers help students understand math in context and possibly answer the infamous “so what” question. In addition we will be making and designing with the Spiral of Theodorus.
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