The Art of Mathematics

  The other day, I came across the "Art of Mathematics" website which I found absolutely fascinating.   The site is devoted to helping people discover the math in liberal arts.  Although, it is actually designed for college level courses, its resources can be used in high school or even younger with some adjustment.

They have created eleven ebooks filled with ideas for teaching the art of mathematics through one liberal art lens.  All of their books begin with The Art of Mathematics: Topic

1.  Art and Sculpture is designed to help the student discover the connection between visual art and mathematics.  The book has students explore a variety of topics from origami, to perspective, projections, and the interplay between dimensions, to the mathematics of 3D panoramic photographs and many other topics.

2. The idea of Calculus takes the student on a journey through the idea and concepts of Calculus by finding the area and length with fractals, string art to explore the relationship between curves, tangents, and derivatives, architecture, and a few other topics.

3. Dance which allows students to see the connections between mathematical ideas and concepts and dance ideas and concepts. This is done through Contra dancing, Salsa dancing, and using the maypole among other activities.

4. Games and Puzzles takes students on a journey connecting math with the structures and patterns found in games and puzzles through the use of a Rubik cube, Suduko, and Hex.   The exploration of each of these games introduces students to understanding how to create their own games or learning how computers think.

5. Geometry which uses activities to see the connection between math and the world around us.  Some of the activities include Flatlands to explore how we perceive what we are looking at, building a 3 dimensional piece of art to understand space, and other concepts.

That is just the first five books.  The other books focus on connecting the ideas and concepts of one type of art to the ideas and concepts of math using Knot Theory, Music, Number Theory, Patterns, the Infinite, and finally Truth, Reasoning, Certainty, and Proof.  Each book provides several inquiry based activities which allow students to explore the topic themselves rather than having the teachers stand in front of the class to "teach" the same material.

In addition, if you check out "classroom" resources, the site has provided information on inquiry based classrooms and using the materials provided along with grouping students, mathematical discussion etc.

Oh and the best thing of all is that all of these ebooks are free.  Just go to the site and download the books, one or all and have fun.  I realize some of these are a bit late for this year but you can always plan to use them next year in your class.

Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.