What a (Field) Trip!
This year’s Math Department Field Trip engaged students and faculty in embodied experiences in the mathematical arts at three spaces in NYC.
Posted in: Mathematics Education PhD, Students and Alumni
What would you say is mathematical about the icosahedron on the right? Likely responses involve quantities, such as the number of faces, the lengths of the edges, or the measures of the angles at each of the vertices.
Now, if you were constrained from providing a response that relies on mathematical quantities, and instead you could only attend to mathematical qualities, what would you say is mathematical about the photograph on the right? This is the essence of the question we were asked to keep in mind throughout the trip and then respond to afterward:
Briefly describe a mathematical experience you had on this adventure that does not rely on quantification or computation. Then share what it enabled you to feel, appreciate, or think about.
What kind of qualitative mathematical experience do you imagine the woman in this photograph might be having? What would that experience enable her to feel, appreciate, or think about?
What kind of math field trip would be framed by such a question? The kind that hopes to move us outside of conventional ways of thinking about what mathematics is, and into a space where we’ll only be able to come up with an answer by reflecting in new ways on just how it is we’re experiencing some mathematical experience. In this news story, we share students’ reflections on their mathematical experiences. These reflections will let us know if our hope was realized.
Read the full article including photos and students’ experiences of the trip!