Although I have always felt relatively comfortable and confident in my maths ability, I chose this elective because I felt the area I struggled with was knowing how to break key concepts down and teach them to children. However, so far, this module has taught me more about fundamental mathematics and how maths is actually everywhere!
It actually is everywhere! This module has made me think about where maths occurs in everyday life. There are the obvious ones like handling money while shopping or weighing out ingredients to bake a cake or being able to tell the time in order to show up to lectures on time. Yet, whenever I see flowers in a vase, pine cones on the ground or even cutting up a pineapple to use in a fruit salad, I never realised maths was involved. Not in the cutting itself, although there might be and I just haven’t twigged yet, but in the shape and make up of the pineapple. There is something called the Golden Ratio at work here. I will go into more detail about this in a blog about the Fibonacci Sequence. Ultimately, the lesson I learned was that maths is evident in nature.
This elective is also teaching me that maths is evident in art. I’ve always loved art and found it very expressive and free with no set rules or structures to it therefore at first I found it hard to grasp the fact that maths would be involved. I could understand its function in architecture but not pieces of artwork. However, through exploring tessallations and Islamic art, it was beginning to make sense and I was able to identify familiar mathematical shapes such as hexagons and pentagons. I also found these types of artwork were quite pleasing to the eye. This, again, relates to the golden ratio.
To be honest this module, at first, probably confused me more than it enlightened me. I thought I had a good understanding of maths but soon realised I only had good knowledge of formulas and how to use them to work out equations and problems. I can tell time, add, subtract, multiply and divide but never really knew what the fundamentals of maths were. This module is making me think of when and where maths is or can be used. Thinking about the clothes I put on in the morning; designers would have worked with measurements. Thinking about the car I drove to Uni; engineering is very closely linked with maths. Wondering if the architect who designed Dalhousie used the Golden ratio?
