The Exploratorium and Math

 

Unfortunately, the Exploratorium in San Francisco is currently closed but they still have online activities available for teachers to use in their classroom.  Many of the lessons labelled as math tend to also be science which is great because it shows students how the two are interrelated

The activities range from applying the inverse square law, to calculating the weight of a car based on tire pressure, to packaging, to the radioactive decay model.  So many choices for so much fun.Each lesson has a short description of the concept, list of materials, along with everything needed to conduct the lesson.

The activity on the radioactive decay model uses pennies to show how it works.  The instructions ask that someone toss the pennies onto a flat surface and then take all the pennies that land tail side up and line them up to form a column.  The remaining pennies are picked up and tossed on the flat surface where all the pennies tail side up are picked up and placed in a second column right next to the first column.  This is continued until there are no pennies left. At this point the columns of pennies are used to explain half life so students get a good visual picture of what half life is and how it works.  This provides a wonderful visual for when it is time to teach decay.

Another activity involves paint and fun to create fractal patterns which are found in nature.  Basically a small dot of paint is placed between two plastic sheets and pressure is applied.  Then the two sheets are carefully pulled apart so they come straight off with no smearing and voila you can observe a beautiful fractal.  There is a great explanation of fractals along with information on perfect mathematical fractals such as Sierpinski triangle.

One activity that is not straight mathematics but answers the question of can square wheels roll.  Yes they can with a scalloped road.  The activity uses toilet roll tubes, glue, and a few other things to create a road that a square wheel can travel across.  The mathematics comes at the end when explaining how it all works.

In addition to activities, the Exploratorium has videos on some fascinating topics such as one on cameras and the math of vision.  It looks at the history of photography and how our understanding of vision grew as cameras developed.  The 20 minute video is short enough to put into class yet long enough to show the connection.

Another video shows an artists evolution from math to an in-depth study of polyhedrons to creating them using a variety of materials.  The 5 minute video explains the whole process and something more about how she played with variations and adjustments.

There are a few activities which are connected with videos such as using a handy measuring tool to figure out the height or distance of an object.  Students learn to use their hand as the measuring tool from the video and then the activity has them practicing this in person.  It includes a mathematical explanation and even goes so far as to offer ratios using parts of the hand.

So if you are looking for something a bit different, check this out.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.