Making
Math Visible
Our Mission. Just as exposure to great books
can entice students to learn to read, beautiful mathematical
objects may fuel students' desire to investigate topics in
mathematics and give them an opportunity to acquire a positive
lifetime perspective towards math. Traditional classroom
walls are often overflowing with language-based displays of
learning, while the beauty of math is rarely seen.
We believe that creative hands-on activities can informally
introduce students to mathematical thinking and get them excited
about math. Young people have an inherent curiosity and a
willingness to explore that is characteristic of professional
mathematicians. Our workshops can foster this natural tendency and
show students that “math is cool!” Our goal is to make math
visible and accessible by constructing visually engaging, publicly
displayed objects that provide a tangible platform for discussion
and inquiry.
In the workshops we lead, students, instructors, and other
participants become co-learners and co-creators of design-based
projects that excite and engage them. We are very interested in
the idea of breaking barriers between formal and informal
education using interest-driven activities that connect to school
learning and foster a math culture in and around the school.
Our workshops have a focus on hands-on building in which
participants create a physical structure that can be looked at as
an artwork and/or used as a teaching tool. We provide free lesson
plans because we want to empower teachers by offering easily
accessible resources with strong curricular connections and giving
them the tools and the confidence to incorporate hands-on learning
into their own math classes. Many of the activities touch on
aspects of math beyond the textbook, such as 3D geometry,
topology, graph theory, problem solving, spatial reasoning,
proportional thinking, etc.
You can read more about Making Math Visible in this
paper, presented at the 2017 Bridges Conference in
Waterloo, Ontario. And here is a
video of a talk we gave about this project at St. Jerome's
University at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, February 3 2017.
Note: All MakingMathVisible content
is copyrighted by George Hart and Elisabeth Heathfield. We
freely give teachers, schools, museums, and homeschoolers
permission to use this material in any educational context, but
written permission is needed before selling any products or
services based on our designs.
