Math in Art. Art in Math.

When I first discovered that there were connections between Math and Art, I was fascinated.

So, I started integrating some art into math lessons.  Originally, my purpose was two-fold: 1. Make math class fun. 2. Show students this new world of Mathematics.



Fail.  This was definitely not a good teaching strategy.  Students mostly enjoyed the tasks, no doubt.  But the way I presented the tasks... it was more show.  The students did not think they were actually doing math, but were mostly humouring me since it was definitely more fun than math.





Yet, it was not total failure.  Surprising 'aha' moments popped out of integrating some art into math class.  Take a look at the polynomial function in the picture above represented in a pie.  Suddenly the 'zeroes' of the function mean something more than that curvy line crossing the x-axis.  Zero means don't draw any circles.

 

Students get a deeper understanding of fractals, similarity, patterns, infinity.... when they actually need to physical use a pencil or paintbrush to draw out designs.  Take a look at the series of pictures above. The painting on the left is a 2' x 3' painting, and each consecutive picture is just zoomed in to the next level of detail.

This hexagon of Pascal's Triangles is about 2 meters across.  Surprisingly large!  How does it work?  We first set up a colour code: 0-green, 1-blue, 2-orange, 3-yellow, 4 purple.  Then each student painted one of the triangles in either Mod 3, 4, or 5.  So, what skills are they using here?  Nothing too intense.  The numbers they were adding together were less than 5.  A bit of modular arithmetic.  Yet, the aha moments that DID come out were surprising.  Grade 12 Math students making statements like... 'Hey, these are all zeroes, so if we keep adding zeroes it will still be zero.' Very true.  Great observation.  Funny thing is, they never needed to add zeroes together before. Even though they knew that loads of nothing is still nothing, it felt more powerful when a big patches of green zero-ness appeared.

If students were given an assignment to graph that extensive list of equations above, they would scream with the dullness of it.  Lines.  Circles. Parabolas.  What's the purpose of it all.  Give them the opportunity to design a face.... and students almost beg me to show them (ie teach them) about inequalities, restricted domains, transformations, etc.  Why?  Because they want to fill the eyes in with color, keep the smile within the face, or move that nose just a tad up so it doesn't overlap with the mouth!

I attempt to put a little more thought into integrating art into my math classrooms now.  Students need to feel that what they are doing is truly mathematics to appreciate the deeper levels of mathematics involved.  Hopefully, I can take this to the next level in my classroom next year!

The three pictured below were actually an art class assignment from my current students... but I still think they are pretty awesome!