On April 20, 2024, a group of educators from across the lower mainland met at the plaza of the Vancouver Art Gallery to begin an urban math walk, guided by Lauren MacLean and myself. We introduced ourselves and each participant was provided with a little bag and a postcard with questions to provoke our thinking as we walked.
In each participants little bag, there was a collection of tools from Math Anywhere, a pencil, and a #BCreggio math button. An example of the tools for finding math included these shape finding frames:
This was the general route we took, needing to make a few detours.
We began our walk down the street from the art gallery, with a public art installation.
Public art is common in urban spaces and often is changed out over time. Many cities have websites with more information about their public art installations such as the City of Vancouver's website HERE, Vancouver Biennale HERE and the Vancouver Mural Fest HERE.
Public art is a great way to connect mathematics to the world and explore mathematical concepts such as shape, design, symmetry, size, scale, pattern, ratio, etc. Some other public art installations we visited were from Biennale projects and from the Vancouver Mural Festival.
As we walked we discussed all sorts of mathematical connections and possibilities for investigations such as collecting data on modes of transportation, estimating heights of buildings, a timeline of the city's development, impact of humans on living and non-living things in the spaces we walked through, and how numbers are used to organize and label a city. In Vancouver we also bumped up against the use of water by humans for transportation, recreation and industry. What questions might our students have? How might mathematics help us understand these urban places and spaces?
What an amazing morning we had together, re-connecting in person under clear blue skies, exploring the city and nudging each others' thinking. Many educators attending shared how they were inspired to take ideas from our walk together back to their schools and communities and to see the places and spaces around them through a new lens.
Where might you find mathematics in urban places and spaces?
~Janice
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