Artist Sol LeWitt and Points, Lines, Angles

Sol LeWitt was an artist born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1928 he was most known for his conceptual art, however in this overview we are going to focus on his Instructables. Instructables are wall art where the artist has to follow a particular set of instructions. Sol LeWitt came up with a large number of different instructions, some he never did himself.

For example Wall Drawing #65 in colored pencil is of follows:

Lines are not short, not straight, crossing and touching, drawn at random using four colors, uniformly dispersed with maximum density, covering the entire surface of the wall.

This is what Sol LeWitt came up with:

This is bad example, because it does not take in the sheer size of the piece. Since it is a wall piece it is so large that you could not fully see it from one spot.

So how does this relate to math?

Sol LeWitt has hundreds of these instructions were he takes shapes such as squares, circles, and triangles. He also loves lines, some straight some not, and vertical and perpendicular angles. So to introduce and apply the first section of geometry points, lines, and planes. We attempted our own Sol LeWitt.

Our instructions were: On a wall surface, any continuous stretch of wall, using a hard pencil, place fifty points at random. The points should be evenly distributed over the area of the wall. All of the points should be connected by straight lines.

I assigned all students a letter and then had them connect to each other, so we only really had 26 points, but our artwork was just as amazing.



It did take a little bit more time than I was planning, but the picture at the top took 8 days to make.

We talked about lines and line segments and this brought up a good conversation about how we name lines. I would ask a student which one is the longest line, but would not let them get out of their seat. So it was easier for the student to name the line segment than point.

I love using art in the classroom and Sol LeWitt's Instructables are an easy way to get art in the geometry classroom.

Below is a PDF with some Instructions to do you own.

License Plate Combinations

When we come back from winter break we normally start our probability and statistics unit. I normally take a week for probability and a week for statistics which normally melts into three weeks. I've always thought nothing of changing it, but during winter break Dan Meyer posted "Plates Without States"  Since we were going over permutations and combinations I thought this would be an excellent way to get students thinking about how many different combinations there are in license plates and why they make them like that.

To start the lesson I had students go through Dan Meyer State-Plate Game.  Students were definitely engaged and loved playing against each other in their groups.

Next we talked about license plates and I separated it from combinations and permutations.

I gave all of the students a blank license plate and a card. The card had a name of a city or state and a population that students had to take in consideration.

Here are some of the license plates that students were working on.

When students were done with their license plates, they took a picture of their license plate and put it on SeeSaw. The last part they had to do was comment on three others the number of different combinations that they had with their license plate.

Here were a few students figuring out and commenting on other students post.

I like this activity much more and students realized how license plates play a role in local governments and how the population of an area can control the different license plates possible.

I posted almost all of them in the back of my room here are a bunch of different ones that are posted.

Creating Mathematical Art (PBL Unit #1)

Schuyler Central High School has started a Project-based Learning Class for students who are struggling in general education classes.

Students had to find surface area and volume of all the shapes on their own, using computers and equations to find all of the measurements.

Students then once completed had to make a work of art based on the measurements they found. This is an example of one.

I took some pictures along the way here they are.








Since the beginning of the year I have been slowly gaining students, I am now up to 5 students. Since they have been slowly trickling in this has been an excellent project to get them started.

This project for most of the students has been a 2-3 week project.

Gene Davis Inspired Math/Art Project

One of my favorite projects we do is at the end of the first quarter. After we have gone through perpendicular, intersecting, and parallel lines I have an art project that students do. Students have to split up their piece of card stock into 4 equal shapes with a ruler on the front and on the back split the two on the front right down the middle.

I never tell students what the lines are for on the back, but they are for postcards for their upcoming parent teacher conferences. I hang up one set in the classroom and send the others home over time.

When I have them split up the front of the card stock I have them put different types of lines in each rectangle. One for perpendicular lines, intersecting, and parallel lines.

The last rectangle is for Gene Davis.

We talk about Gene Davis the artist and what he did and his accomplishments. I show them different artworks and ask them about what he did and why it is so amazing.

Some of the students think that what he does isn't art and then we look at his artwork on scale about how big each painting is and how time consuming it is for each line.

So after the artist study we finished drawing and filling in each rectangle.

Some of the different artworks are down below:









         


At the end this is what our Gene Davis Inspired Wall looked like. Students got to take home another one of their creations to put on the fridge and remind them that parent-teacher conferences were coming up and I was looking forward to meeting them.

5 Math Projects for Project Based Learning

At Schuyler Central High School next year we will have a new course in every subject area under what we call "Project Succeed." This will be a credit recovery class where students will undertake 5 projects throughout the year to earn those 5 credits.  If students do 3 of the 5 projects they earn 3 of the 5 credits.  Since this is the first year of the course, I am going to do 5 projects that someone else has done before.  Next year I will try to incorporate different projects that are more authentic.

1. Conceptual Art Project
This project is putting students in the drivers seat of incorporating art and math together.  Students will have the opportunity to put one concept of mathematics into a work of art.  They can create a watercolor, painting, or sculpture.  Students will then write a one page paper on what math concept was described and how it came out in the artwork.

I was thinking of using the timeline of this other Calculus Artwork Project.

2. Making a Math Treasure Map
This project has students using Google Maps to create a mathematical treasure map where students are given clues that lead them to the buried treasure.  Students will use coordinate geometry, and equations and lines to make the map.

3. Paper Folding 
This project has an "art-y" feel exactly like the first one.  Students will use origami to make a 3 Dimensional shape.  You will explore the relationship between surface area and volume. Is one always bigger than the other? Can you make cubes with the same surface area but different volumes?  Students will work in pairs to create either a cube or tetrahedron and then derive the surface area and volume formulas. 

4. Nutritional Math
In the launch activity students use unit rates and proportional reasoning to calculate how long they'd have to exercise to burn off different McDonald's menu items.  They then discuss which they think is a better representation of nutritional information.  Students would then create their own infographic for number of minutes in each activity to burn off a particular McDonalds item. 

Students would then create a personalized menu tailored to their own bodies, diets, and exercise routines.  

5. Three Shots
This last one I want to be more of a data based project where they are collecting and analyzing datat, we will see what I eventually get to.  In Three Shots, students will compute the probabilities of a Memphis basketball team win, loss, or tie when fouled at the buzzer and explore this even further in two project tasks, To Foul or Not to Foul and That Is The Question.