Math Art Project Reflection

My group (Madison, Mark, Sahl, and Andy) worked with AnneMarie Torresen's "Prime-ary Colors." I chose the art piece for its mathematical simplicity, which would lend to its use in a high school classroom. Mark was our creative genius who brought big ideas for both the mathematical and art extensions: prime signatures and concentric circles, respectively. Sahl was our brute-force recreator, who replicated AnneMarie's work with a few minor changes to the grayscale values (to make it more aesthetically pleasing). And last but not least, Andy was the computer engineer who coded all of the circles seen in the presentation. With all that finished, I created the slideshow and class activity for the final stages of the project. 

Slideshow: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1_TcrAFXY7qYB0TB270tVr8aBEmMFeN7-h7jkf1_A0V8/edit?usp=sharing

This project definitely cured some of my past group-project traumas. Everyone in my group was very involved and engaged and everyone contributed with their individual strengths. In the past, I've always hated group projects because I felt like I could have done it better on my own, but this is the first time I can confidently say that I could not have done it on my own. I don't have Sahl's patience, Andy's computer skills, or Mark's creativity. So this was a very cathartic experience. I also found the progression so satisfying. I may have chosen the initial work, but I could not have predicted our final product. I also discovered a new skill in using Canva for the first time to make a (pretty stellar in my opinion) presentation. 

I would definitely use the extension with the perfect squares in my own classroom. I came up with the idea of perfect squares because I thought it would be a great point of access for adolescent students. AnneMarie's quotation about entry points really resonated with me as a future educator. She talks about language, music, code, textiles, puzzles, (and colours) as entry points to mathematics. As I mentioned in class, I have grapheme-colour synesthesia, but this was never presented to me as a valid interpretation of math. And why not? That's why I think this art project is so great -- it has the potential to meet students where they're at and uses shapes and colours as an access point. It can also be adapted to many other math topics by highlighting distributions, patterns, and connections between numbers in a non-traditional way. No more gatekeeping mathematics!