STEAMing away with Mathematical Selfies -- By Axelle Faughn

The academic term STEAM came along a few years ago when Arts education advocates argued that the Arts should be added to STEM education programs (an integrated approach to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics education) in order to further improve performance and creativity in the upcoming American workforce. As Kathy's previous post illustrated, Mathematical Selfies are a good way to tap into students' ability to connect mathematical concepts to real world representations while providing an outlet for individual creativity and personal artistic strengths. Here I shall expand a bit more on developing such a holistic view of learning mathematics.

Sequence on the Beach
Courtesy of Emmanuelle Forgeoux

The obvious connection involves the art of composition in photography. For instance the following student, while seeking an appealing image of a sequence, decided to create this stunning picture of sand balls on the beach. It is minimal enough to not distract the viewer's attention from the main concept, and symbolic enough to expect this image will easily be stored in long-term memory as associated with the idea of sequencing.
Using this particular representation, additional discussions could expand the notion of sequencing to the idea of function.




Another type of connection to the Arts students easily make when looking for Mathematics Selfies is the one between mathematics and architecture/engineering. Building patterns and symmetries provide a wealth of representations for the mathematical eye, and architectural structures rely heavily on mathematics for solidity, mechanical features, and visual appeal. For example, as a pre-calculus student noted, the repetition and symmetry of a church arches can illustrate the notion of periodicity, while seeking maximal thrill on a roller-coaster can be modeled by the local extrema of a polynomial function. Roofs and awnings are also good illustrations of where triangle congruency plays a role in shaping our buildings.

Architectural Symmetry
and Repetitions

Max and Min on a Rollercoaster

Triangle Congruency for Building strong Structures

The Art of Geometric Constructions

The notion of geometric construction can also be approached from an architectural standpoint. Indeed, as the following geometry student realized during an assignment on geometric constructions, in order to to construct a square shape, one could possibly start with two sets of opposite parallel sides, then adjust sizes and angles as necessary.

 You may notice that in several of these submissions the students either added in text of "painted" additional symbols on the mathematical objects in order to convey their understanding. This is a skill that Mathematical Selfies help the students develop since they have to play with a variety of digital tools in order to create these "pictures and quotes" submissions. Graphic literacy is a growing field that demands a lot of creativity and versatility in using the available technology out there, one that requires both an artistic and a mathematical understanding of symbols in order to convey the attempted message meaningfully.



All these examples are clear evidence that Science and the Arts work together in communicating ideas, and should not be considered as completely separate fields in the curriculum. There are many opportunities for bringing them together in an integrated way, Mathematical Selfies being one of them.