Dr. Glen Whitney, founder of the National Museum of Mathematics in New York and walkSTEM advisor admires the stunning and dynamic Wave sculpture created by renowned artist Santiago Calatrava. He asks and answers three questions about this artwork: Is it straight or is it curved? Is it symmetric? How did Calatrava build this sculpture?... CONTINUE READING
Dr. Glen Whitney, founder of the National Museum of Mathematics in New York and walkSTEM advisor discusses the differences between a labyrinth and a maze and poses the math questions that directly relate to the design of a labyrinth, which is a winding path that never repeats, and yet has only one route that can take you from the outer edge to the center. How do you design a labyrinth? How many different labyrinths could there be or is this the only one?... CONTINUE READING
Dr. Glen Whitney, founder of the National Museum of Mathematics in New York and walkSTEM advisor admires the unique grid up high above this space. Some questions that you get to explore are: What are louvers, and why are they useful?Can you identify other natural or man-made items which perform the same function or purpose as the louvers at the Winspear Opera House? What are the attributes of a quadrilateral, of a parallelogram? How could you measure the length of an object that is a far away fr... CONTINUE READING
Estimation, quantity, and scale help us understand aspects of the world around us that we can’t always interact with directly – these tools help us understand large objects and numbers, and ways to represent them. We discuss the questions students at the St. Philip’s School and Community Center posed within this math theme to show just how intuitive this can be! This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant DRL 2115393. Any opinions, findings, an... CONTINUE READING
The Tuskegee Airmen were the first Black military aviators in the U.S. Army Air Corps, a precursor of the U.S. Air Force. They flew more than 15,000 individual sorties in Europe and North Africa during World War II. Their performance earned them more than 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses, and helped encourage the eventual integration of the U.S. armed forces. In this video we explore the symmetries we can observe as we explore a model of the airplane these heroes flew. Supplementary Activity Gui... CONTINUE READING
Design is often fueled by the designers’ experiences and in the case of the Wright Brothers, their background in bicycle repair shaped their design of the Flyer. Here, we observe the Flyer exhibit at the museum and make connections to bicycles – so you can think of the Flyer as a flying bicycle in some ways! Supplementary Activity Guides to extend student learning at the Frontiers of Flight Museum for K-12 grade levels are freely available here:... CONTINUE READING
At Camp Whispering Cedars, Girl Scouts climb a winding series of steps to reach the top of an observation deck, where they can stargaze or have meetings. We wonder how they might estimate exactly how many people could have fun stargazing sleepover party on the deck! Supplementary Activity Guides for this video to extend student learning for K-12 grade levels are freely available here: https://talkstem.org/tal... CONTINUE READING
We wonder what the maximum number of people is that could fit on board the 737 people we are walking through at the museum? How can we come up with a good estimate? We use number arrays to come up with our estimate and walk you through our thinking. Supplementary Activity Guides to extend student learning at the Frontiers of Flight Museum for K-12 grade levels are freely available here:... CONTINUE READING
Ever look into a pool and think, “Wow – that’s a lot of water!” This thought prompted us to consider exactly how many showers one could take using water in the pool at Camp Whispering Cedars. We started by measuring the surface area and perimeter of the pool before determining volume, using the formula, Volume=(Area)(Height). You’ll be amazed at what we discovered! Supplementary Activity Guides for this video to extend student learning for K-12 grade levels are freely available here:... CONTINUE READING