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We studied cube-n-ometry from a number of different perspectives. First, we looked at professions that utilize top views, front views and side views to educate. Some of these professions included cartographers or map makers who generally use aerial, top or birds eye views. The take these photos from satellites, airplanes, helicopters, or unmanned drones. From these pictures they can develop very accurate maps.

I am always intrigued by people who are multilingual. When I am asked if I speak any other languages, I always tell people, “no, I am still working on English.” But that is really not true when we look at the language of mathematics and numbers in general. In fact, different base number systems are essentially distinct languages.  For example, we are on the base 10 number system.

We started class looking at some of my pictures from my trip to Rome and Pompeii where we looked at ancient buildings like the Colosseum and the Pantheon to works of art by Michelangelo (the Pieta, the Moses, Christ standing, the Sisteen Chapel’s  Last Judgement and ceiling) and Raphael’s School of Athens (with zoomed snapshots of mathematicians we have studied such as Plato, Euclid, and Pythagorus,  as well as inventions by Leonardo da Vinci.

Last week, we only explored the relative sizes of the planet in our solar system, including Pluto. The children were very interested in exploring the moon vs. Earth so we started by cutting up the Kinetic Sand into 50 equal parts using several strategies which included first cutting in half, then 5ths and then 5ths again. With one group we cut it into 5ths first, then halves, then 5ths again. One fiftieth of the material represented the moon and 49/50s represented the Earth.

Mathematicians and all persons of reason are taught to question everything. And yet, from the time I was a child fascinated with the stars and planets in our solar system, I assumed that the pictures in all of the books were accurate. That couldn’t have been further from the truth. Not a single picture I every saw had a disclaimer that said, “not drawn to scale.”