#MathFinder Moment
What is mathematical about this incredible mosaic mural? Many of you may have seen this mural when visiting the Dallas Museum of Art!
Add your ideas about questions relating to the mural in the comments section below!
Click here to check out our video about the math we saw embedded in this artwork!
In future newsletters, we will be profiling your Mathfinder moments! Please share your photos from the places you go (could be anywhere) and your MathFinder questions with us here.
Events
On May 25th, we will hold a MathFinder Partner Site Meeting at St. Philip’s School and Community Center! Thank you so much to the St. Philip’s team for hosting us!
On February 25th, Tamasha Govan with St. Philip’s School and Community Center and Jessica Liken with Dallas Arboretum gave a presentation at DFWSS MiniCAST titled “The Science Behind MathFinder: A Free STEM Resource That Takes You Places.” The group was very engaged and excited to learn more about the MathFinder project!
Partner Spotlight:
Voice of Hope Ministries
Voice of Hope Ministries was founded in 1982. Our non-profit has proudly served and changed the lives of the children and families throughout West Dallas and the surrounding communities for over 40 years.
The Mission of Voice of Hope Ministries exists to extend the love of Jesus Christ by nurturing and training children through Biblical teaching, Christian character models, life skills coaching and educational support. We are able to fulfill our mission through our ASPIRE – After School Programs and SOAR – Summer Day Camp. As our out of school time programs are the center of our organization, we also strive to serve West Dallas and the surrounding communities through different avenues. Through our Family and Community Services sector we provide a food pantry, family events and act as a meeting location for several community groups including Mathfinders!
talkSTEM and the Mathfinder project partnered with Voice of Hope Ministries in the fall of 2022, our children were excited to see the videos and recognize familiar faces during the Math walks! The MathFinder project has the goal to introduce Math in our student’s everyday life, the children learned the Art of noticing and were able to see Math in a whole new way!
In the Community:
Meet Selena Wilson from Dallas Arboretum
Name: Selena Wilson
Role in Organization: Director of Education
Q: What are one or more favorite places you like to go to in the city of Dallas?
A: I love Trinity Groves because of all the great outdoor areas and the variety of restaurants. I enjoy going to Klyde Warren park with my kids and riding the McKinney Ave Trolley.
Q: What is your dream vacation?
A: I love anything with a beach. I have always dreamed of going to the Maldives.
Q: When you aren’t working, what is something that you love to do?
A: I love camping, hiking and campfires and all watersports.
Resources
Please click here to check out the Mathfinder website! Click here to sign-up to receive occasional emails regarding Mathfinder news and updates!
Podcast
Click here to listen to the MathFinder podcast on our website. New episodes will be coming later this spring. You can also listen to our podcast on Spotify, Apple Music, and any other podcast streaming platform!
Project Updates
Math TEK alignments are now added to the website! Click here to search videos by Math TEK.
Coming soon: New “For Educators” page with a Summer Camp Kit for Educators. We are excited to announce that several of our partner sites will be infusing MathFinder resources in their summer programming this year. They include: Dallas Arboretum, Dallas Zoo, Frontiers of Flight Museum, and St. Philip’s School & Community Center. Additionally, other summer camps in Dallas beyond our partner sites are also planning on using our open-access resources!
New math walk videos at the Dallas Museum of Art have been added to our website! Now, you can take a walk to look at five incredible artworks in the permanent collection through the lens of the math theme of Math Patterns. You’ll meet several DMA staff members and high school student volunteers who will guide you through these artworks. Click here to check them out!
Research: In March and April, we successfully completed two research camps! We are grateful to our partner sites for working closely with us to make research possible and to make the learning experience for the kids at each site a great experience for all involved! Research camps took place atTwelve Hills Nature Center, Dallas ISD, and Voice of Hope Ministries!
Click here to read a recent article published by Dr. Candace Walkington and Min Wang titled “Investigating Problem-posing During Math Walks in Informal Learning Spaces.”
You can click here to view additional MathFinder research articles and presentations.
Partner Site Happenings
Here is what’s happening at our partner sites in May:
Frontiers of Flight Museum
Summer Camps for rising 1st-10th graders!
From June 5th to July 28th
Weeklong summer camps feature educational tours, games, creative projects, investigations, and more. Choose between Aviation, Space, STEM, or attend all three! Campers will be grouped by grade level and have age appropriate activities for their respective grade range. All campers will get to experience our SPOC Planetarium and visit the Museum’s galleries. 5th grades and higher will get to hear from a local STEM Career Speaker!
Spread the Word
We are grateful for your continued support and would appreciate your help sharing MathFinder with the larger community! Please forward this newsletter to anyone in your network who may be interested in receiving our updates. They can also join our mailing list here.
Guest Blog
Are you interested in writing a guest blog post for our future newsletters? If so, we would love to hear from you! We are open to a wide range of possible topics that you could write about. Examples include different mathfinder activities at your site, learning math in general at your site, your perspective on learning, etc.! Please reach out to koshi@talkstem.org and hannah@talkstem.org to share your ideas.
Guest blog submission guidelines:
- Word count should be approximately 300-800 words
- Videos and photos are encouraged
- Cite any quotes, data, images, or third party content used