Month:

How does the pendulum move?

  • September 9

A high school student at Hockaday School created a campus STEM walk for elementary students to enjoy. In this walk stop, she looks at the large pendulum the school is fortunate enough to have.... CONTINUE READING

How many tiles are there?

  • September 9

A high school student at Hockaday School created a campus STEM walk for elementary students to enjoy. In this walk stop, she comes up with a strategy for estimating the total number of tiles making up a walkway on campus.... CONTINUE READING

How tall is the sculpture?

  • September 9

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

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

What Mathematical Differences Do We See?

  • September 9

The four individual works that make up Campanile Window have a similar-looking structure to each other, but are not identical. Methods of quantifying some of their differences mathematically are discussed, analyzing color, lines, and interior 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 here:... CONTINUE READING

How Large is the Art?

  • September 9

Martin Donlin’s multi-panel work Blueprint of Flight spans a large portion of the pedestrian walkway wall. By measuring the size of single one of these panel, and multiplying by the number of panels in the work, we can begin to calculate the square footage of the piece as a whole. 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 here:... 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

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 tall is the Ad Astra sculpture?

  • September 9

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

What is the angle at the very top of the Ad Astra sculpture?

  • September 9

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