Month:

What is the ideal four square fraction?

  • September 9

High school members of the Women in STEM club in Greenhill School stop at the playground on their math walk to share some math with the second graders.How can we divide a square into four equal parts so we can play four square? How do fractions help us create games? This content was made by community members from the Greenhill School - we invite all interested groups to reach out and find more information on creating content of their own with us at... CONTINUE READING

How many people can fit in the gym?

  • September 9

St. Philip's Academy teachers use math to verify or refute the claim that 300 billion people attended a recent basketball game. This video was supported by City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs. Thanks to our partnership with Mathigon, you can enjoy this walkSTEM stop using learning extensions in the Polypad interactive virtual whiteboard. You can visit this stop's Polypad here: Polypad #1: How many r... CONTINUE READING

What is the speed of the water?

  • September 9

Ronald Kirk Bridge is a pedestrian bridge over the Trinity River in Dallas, connecting downtown Dallas and West Dallas. It is over 2,000 feet long and 60 feet wide. At the Ronald Kirk Bridge, the talkSTEM team found a natural whirlpool in the Trinity River. The video explores a strategy for estimating the speed of water. What other strategies could you use to measure the speed of a liquid? What about objects traveling through air instead of water? At talkSTEM, we know that math isn't always perf... CONTINUE READING

How can we measure arches and lines?

  • September 9

Over 7 million people visit the West End Historic District every year! What if they all stood in line to visit? What would that look like? We use math to help us understand this gargantuan number! This video was supported by City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs.... CONTINUE READING

Using arrays, how many windows are there?

  • September 9

What's the best way to figure out the number of windows on the Texas School Book Depository? Math, of course! Watch the video to see how we applied the concept of arrays to answer this question. This video was supported by City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs.... CONTINUE READING

How tall are the flagpoles?

  • September 9

Towering over Dallas City Hall Plaza are 3 flag poles. How do we use similar triangles and shadows to determine their height? This video was supported by City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs.... CONTINUE READING

How High Does it Climb?

  • September 9

The sculpture Venture, by Alexander Liberman, is composed of several steel tubes, stacked toward the sky. At such a great height, measuring its size by hand can be a challenge; instead visual estimation must be used. Additionally, the shapes comprising Venture are discussed, involving various ellipses and special forms that can even be recreated at home! This video was supported by the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs. Supplementary Activity Guides for this video to extend student learn... CONTINUE READING

How Hard Do Robots Work?

  • September 9

Much of the luggage sorting and transport at the Dallas Love Field Airport is manage by robots built by the Daifuku company. This system can process massive amounts of luggage every year – but how much does it handle, on average, every day? With some simple calculations, we can calculate just how fast this robot-run system operates compared to a human-only method. This video was supported by the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs. Supplementary Activity Guides for this video to extend s... CONTINUE READING

How Can We Estimate the Amount of Water on Earth?

  • September 9

The terrazzo World Map in the main lobby provides a fairly accurate representation of the Earth’s surface. Using the lines separating its sections to divide it into quadrants, we can use fractions to estimate the portion of the whole covered by water. Combining these parts back together and comparing it to established numbers should give us and idea of how close we were able to get with our estimation! This video was supported by the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs. Supplementary Act... CONTINUE READING