a kinder, gentler model

[ironymaiden]

crocheted hyperbolic geometry models. (via girlpirate and the crocheted coral reef project.) i wish art and applications could come into the math educational picture before college. sigh.

Comments

[miss-swamp.livejournal.com]

This is fantastic. We need some of those around the house.

I do math/art with 5th graders! My favorite example is when we talk about fractals and make an enormous Sierpinski triangle (http://math.rice.edu/~lanius/fractals/) and I make them figure out stuff about the proportions at each level.

I know they'd get it better if they were a little older, but they do get it: I Make Them. And they'll get it even better next time they have an ambitious math teacher.

[ironymaiden]

and they will remember that stuff. people get stoked about math when it's pretty and/or practical.

(there are instructions on the website. i bet solcita could make them in her sleep.)

[buhrger]

kewl!

i wish art and applications could come into the math educational picture before college.
some applications do, but a proper treatment of hyperbolic geometry requires a couple of years of calculus and linear algebra and probably some topology beforehand. but as this site shows, you can appreciate it to some extent without having to do a "proper" treatment.

[ironymaiden]

elsewhere the woman who developed them talks about how she used them as a way to help her art major students connect to the material and feel less intimidated by math in general. i feel like you're on the right path by turning your students on to things like calclating sales tax, but by the time you get them their opinion of the subject is fully formed.

The idiot genius

[boldfeather.livejournal.com]

So the things I made when I was first exploring and experimenting with crochet weren't just wavy blobs? They actually were something?