A high school student at Hockaday School created a campus STEM walk for elementary students to enjoy. In this walk stop she explores the golden ratio that she sees in the dance studio on campus.... CONTINUE READING
A high school student at Hockaday School created a campus STEM walk for elementary students to enjoy. In this walk stop, she stops at a tall sculpture that contains glass shapes created by Hockaday students and invites us to estimate the height of the sculpture and also to estimate the total number of glass shapes on the sculpture using some math detective work!... CONTINUE READING
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
The floor tiles used to make Untitled (Love Field) by Lane Banks only come in four colors, but never allow two rings of the same color to touch. With that in mind, methods of calculating how many permutations – specific, ordered arrangements – of these segments are possible are discussed. This uses the mathematical concept of factorials to practice combinatorics – the study of combinations and permutations. This video was supported by the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs. Suppleme... CONTINUE READING
The sculpture Sky uses a structural system of fiberglass rods to keep all of its components supported and in place. The arrangement of these rods make use of tension and compression forces to spread out weight and and force along the entire structure – something that we can analyze through basic shapes. This video was supported by the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs. Supplementary Activity Guides for this video to extend student learning for K-12 grade levels are freely available her... CONTINUE READING
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
Join Dr. Glen Whitney, founder of the National Museum of Mathematics on a math walk. He uses the power of similar triangles to calculate the height of a giant sculpture inside the NorthPark Center. How can we estimate the height of the sculpture without getting a ladder? This video was supported by NorthPark Center. Supplementary Activity Guides for this video to extend student learning for K-12 grade levels are freely available here:... CONTINUE READING
Join Dr. Glen Whitney, founder of the National Museum of Mathematics on a math walk. With the help of friends, he attempts to estimate the angle at the top of this very tall angle at the top of the Ad Astra sculpture. This video was supported by NorthPark Center. Supplementary Activity Guides for this video to extend student learning for K-12 grade levels are freely available here: https://talkstem.org/talkst... CONTINUE READING
Join Dr. Glen Whitney, Founder of the National Museum of Mathematics, on a math walk. As you walk throughout NorthPark Center, you may notice a pattern of artwork that reoccurs. There are several panels that appear like addition equations with color. Can you add colors like numbers? Dr.Glen Whitney explores the concept of adding colors using a color wheel. On a color wheel, you can calculate the angle bisector of two colors to find the resulting color if the two were mixed. We discuss how there... CONTINUE READING
The stained glass of Campanile Window, by Octavio Medellin, contains irregular quadrilaterals – four-sided shapes with sides of different lengths – interspersed with lines and triangles in varying angles. In combination, all these lines create a sort of linear perspective, mimicking the way images shrink and converge as they recede from a viewer. Despite being made of flat, static glass, those design elements give the piece a clever way to convey a sense of energy and motion that matches wel... CONTINUE READING