Eve, T. (2019). Bridges Stockholm 2018 and this week’s Introduction
Eve Torrence is a mathematics
professor at Randolph-Macon College, in Ashland, VA. Eve incorporates the arts
into their teaching and designing mathematical sculptures. Eve provides an
overview of the 2018 Bridges Conference in Stockholm.
The conference takes place at
the National Museum of Science and Technology. However, the museum is on a
campus that is also shared by the Ethnographic Museum, Maritime Museum, Swedish
Sports Museum and the Police Museum. In this particular year the proceedings
included 44 papers, 55 short papers, and 21 workshops.
Eve’s description of the museum
makes it sound the perfect place for the conference, especially as day four
honoured Nordic Day (marking the signing of the Helsinki Treaty) and Family
Day. At the front of the museum is the Mathematical Garden. This playground
contains but is not limited to a slide in the shape of a nautilus and a giant
xylophone to explore the relation between fractions and tones.
For Nordic Day 4 lectures on
creative education occurred in the morning. Family Day opened in the afternoon
with Susan Gerofsky’s world premier of her play “Witches of Agnesi”. Here is a
link to a video of “Witches of Agnesi” ,https://vimeo.com/339892315. The play brings together three different
mathematicians who all faced obstacles in their careers because they were
women. (Maria Agnesi (1718–1799), Sofya Kovalevskaya (1850–1891), and Emmy
Noether (1882–1935))
Some of the activities of
Family Day reminded me of our virtual Family Math Day we did in Cynthia’s
course. However, the virtual aspect lacks some of the personal connections that
an in-person event has. Family Day included over 20 workshops featuring - making
paper geometric models, spirographs, and origami. Family Day ended with a Music
Night and a Bridges Fashion Show.
Reading about the binaries of
arts and math, from the Introduction, had me thinking about examples of
art/math crossovers that I could readily recall. The works of Dutch graphic
artist Maurits
Cornelis Escher came to mind first. I see from some Bridges entries, his
tessellations are inspirations for the work of others. As for science, the
Element song came to mind. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2cfju6GTNs)
The
readings also mentioned how the divide is American/European. My questions this
week are: What art/math crossovers first came to your mind?
Thinking
back to your Virtual Family Day activity, did it incorporate any art
crossovers?
Also,
as the NWT switches to the BC curriculum, there is a high school course called
the History of Mathematics. I’m quite interested in teaching this course and I
wonder if doing so would provide both historical and modern examples of
arts/math crossovers from different cultures.
Hi Shawn,
ReplyDeleteGreat crossover with the family day activities from EDCP 550. Coincidentally, Amanda and I worked together, presenting a workshop titled "Shapes, they are all around us". Participants first exercised their ability to chance their perspectives, finding and identifying math shapes around their house. It's interesting how both of the courses connect in this way. I won't go into detail of the second half of the activity, in case Amanda would like to comment.
Hi Shawn,
ReplyDeleteSounds like an interesting way to have a conference in a museum. I think it’s important that when we learn about multimodal ways of teaching and learning math that the teaching itself is presented in diverse ways.
Crazy to think that the math fair was a year ago! Pat and I had participants create animals from shapes. We brainstormed together what shapes and size of shape would be needed to create giraffes and cats. Participants then had time to create and share a shape animal with the group. It seemed that participants were very involved and engaged in the learning. Opportunities to play and create with shapes allow students to see the fun in mathematics!