"Including Mathematical ideas can enhance and support your Exhibits and Programs"

Informal Education Partnerships

Overview

MathHappens provides creative, interesting, and playful mathematics in a variety of settings in partnership with existing organizations and institutions. We highlight the mathematics embedded in history or nature, create spaces for a mathematical playground, and use math engagement to enhance visitors' experiences.

MathHappens Math Rooms

A math room is a space open to the public on a regular schedule, where MathHappens facilitators support children and families with well-designed materials in informal math learning. MathHappens currently supports four math rooms in three cities:

  • Albuquerque, NM: Expora! Science Center and Children's Museum
  • Austin, TX: Austin Nature and Science Center and Millennium Youth Entertainment Complex
  • Mankato, MN: Children's Museum of Southern Minnesota

For more details about MathHappens Math Rooms, visit our Math Rooms page.

A room full of families, math fun, and natural light.

Events

MathHappens provides programming at a wide range of events.

Math On-A-Stick

Together with the Minnesota Council of Teachers of Mathematics, the Minnesota State Fair Foundation, Public Math, and Talking Math with Your Kids, MathHappens helps to bring Math On-A-Stick—twelve days of mathy fun, ending Labor Day—to the Minnesota State Fair each summer.

A child and a grandparent discuss shapes while sitting at an outdoor table with piles of colorful rectangles. In the background, more people sit and wander through the open outdoor space.

Pop Up Math Play

We typically bring a collection of favorite materials from our Math Rooms and prior events, together with a thematic item or two, as appropriate to the event—bee-themed activities to a nature night event, for example.

a young child tiles bees on a table, with a display about bee genetics in the background

Custom Events

We sometimes custom design math interactions for special events. Examples have included measurement tools to identify shifting gravestones in a historic cemetery, a traffic-cone based geometry investigation for International Parking Day in San Marcos, TX, and finding birthday twins for an adult social event at The Thinkery in Austin, TX.

A woman in a sunhat sits at a table filled with wooden measurement devices. She is holding up an information sheet and smiling broadly

Other

We are always excited to explore new possibilities. For example, we recently partnered with Matheatre and the Seattle Universal Math Museum to develop Fracture, an interactive Halloween theater experience.

A composite graphic with a bright red image reading "FRACTURE!" and featuring a human form, a creepy hand silhouette, and a spiderweb made of squares.

Get in touch!

Do you have ideas about partnerships and projects? Get in touch via email: [email protected]. We'd love to work together to discover what's possible.