Please find my draft slides here, as well as my updated draft proposal here.
Monday, March 11, 2024
Saturday, March 9, 2024
Week 9 - Mathematics and traditional and contemporary practices of making and doing
This week's introduction touched on a few points that got me thinking about math and making. I am the last person you might find weaving or twine-making but some of the more modern technologies do appeal to me (laser-cutting, 3D printing, etc.,)
I think if there is one thing this course has exposed me to and really got me thinking more about is the diversity of mathematical practices. This course has explored a ton of traditional and contemporary practices, with a goal of getting me (and more importantly, my students) experimenting with these practices as a way to make connections to mathematical principles. While I can appreciate the mathematics within the technologies of rope-making, loomed textiles, and natural dye processes, the honest fact of the matter is that it is unlikely that I will engage in many of these given the materials and time necessary - they simply feel so far away from my comfort zone. I do enjoy watching this hands-on approach, though. I am much more likely to engage in some of the more modern approaches, like upcycling waste materials for creative re-use.
Bohr & Olsen (2011) The ancient art of laying rope
Bohr & Olsen (2011) take a look at the historical significance of rope-making, and draw attention to the symbolic importance. The authors identify examples from various cultures which emphasize the historical and cultural significance of rope-making practices. The discussion within the article extends to scenes depicting advanced rope-making techniques in ancient Egyptian tombs. The authors further take a look at the geometrical properties of ropes, and discuss the similarity in the structure of ropes made from different fibrous materials. I've never really thought about it too deeply, but there is a universal relationship between the interlocked nature of a helix and the number of rotations in a helix. Bohr & Olsen (2011) reveal some universal behaviour of helix structures.
Secondly, the article examines zero-twist structures, which is a rope that is rigid and inextensible. I've never really thought much about ropes as geometric structures but it makes sense when put within this context. If I could connect it directly to our curriculum, I wouldn't mind the idea of exploring the relationship between rope-making and geometry with my students, but I think the ideas of rigidity and extensibility are more in tune with other curriculums than the Alberta Grade 6 curriculum that I am working with. I think about tensile, compressive, shear, and torsional strengths and loads and high school curriculum when I think about those kinds of things. If I were taking this up with younger students it might have more to do with the symbolic and traditional nature of rope-making than the mathematics.
Saturday, March 2, 2024
Week 8 - Mathematics & fibre arts, fashion arts, and culinary arts & Belcastro (2013)
Flashback this week as I read the materials to 2009 Malcolm deciding whether to become a teacher or go to culinary school. If I wasn't a teacher right now I'd most likely be a chef, and as someone who has spent/does spend a lot of time in the kitchen I can appreciate the mathematics inherent in the craft of preparing food. I grew up making recipes with my grandma, most of which she had memorized, and I scrambled in my adult life to gather them from her and write them down somewhere. My grandma was diagnosed with lung cancer in June of 2021 and between then and November of that year when she passed away she wrote all of her recipes down for me. Something that I will keep and one day pass along to my own kids. As a kid I didn't appreciate the mathematical thinking or patterns in these recipes but I can certainly see them now.
Knitting, crocheting, cooking, and other practices involve a lot of mathematical thinking in terms of proportions, logic, geometry, and others. The key takeaway of this week's introduction is the change in attitude required to recognize the inherent mathematics in these skills. This is the message that I try to pass on to my students when we do math - that by keeping an open mind and acknowledging the interconnectedness of math in life and in most things we do, there is a way to deepen your understanding. My students are very into finger weaving the last few weeks as one of the teachers in my school started a club, so I encouraged them this week to work those skills and make some interesting things.
Belcastro's (2013) article, Adventures in Mathematical Knitting, details her long-standing passion for knitting and crafting mathematical objects, namely Klein bottles. Belcastro argues that crafting these objects enhances understanding because it requires a deep comprehension of the abstractions that are being created.
My first stop in the article was the challenge Belcastro faced early on in the designs of mathematical knitting. As someone who is not and has never been a knitter, I can't imagine the difficulty in planning out the twists and surface texture needed in designing something like a Klein bottle. The design has to fit together mathematically as well as aesthetically, as Belcastro explains, so there are multiple layers of challenges inherent in a task such as this one.
It's not overtly there but is fairly easy to make the connection to math when you look at fibre arts such as weaving, knitting, crocheting. The geometry and the patterns are evident in any beautiful piece of work. Cooking and knitting were both mathematical hobbies of my grandma, one of which I picked up and the other I didn't, but it's clear that she had a mathematical mind for these things. Her third hobby was drinking coffee, which I've also taken a liking to, and is rich with mathematics on its own. Weighing beans, heating water to a specific temperature, measuring pour rate; there are mathematical concepts in many hobbies that we don't think of.
March 11th - Term Assignment Draft 2
Please find my draft slides here , as well as my updated draft proposal here .
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