Month:

What is an Irregular Quadrilateral?

  • September 9

Dr. Glen Whitney, founder of the National Museum of Mathematics in New York and walkSTEM advisor, discusses some of the shapes within the Campanile Window installation at Dallas Love Field airport, and how they’re used to support and integrate the irregularly-shaped windows with the more classically rectangular shapes of the ticketing hall in which they've been hung. This video was supported by the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs. Supplementary Activity Guides for this video to exten... CONTINUE READING

What’s the Mathematical Pattern?

  • September 9

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

What’s the Scale?

  • September 9

The giant mosaic North Texas Sunrise depicts many native texan flowers, all far larger than life. Using a standard 8.5" x 11" sheet paper as a measuring device, we calculate how much larger the mosaic flowers are than the real thing, determining the scale of the artwork. 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 do Forces Work?

  • September 9

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

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

Shapefinder – Goodnight Dallas

  • September 9

In this video, we share the ways you can use this convenient math measuring tool to explore the places you visit with your child/student, including the place they are in right now from home to campus! You can freely print the shapefinder tool as well as the angle-a-tron tool onto an acetate using these pdfs... CONTINUE READING

Angle a tron

  • September 9

In this video, we share the ways you can use this convenient math measuring tool to explore the places you visit with your child/student, including the place they are in right now from home to campus! You can freely print the angle-a-tron tool as well as the shapefinder tool onto an acetate using these pdfs... CONTINUE READING