While one author was reading "The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets by Simon Singh" (2013) in preparation for a presentation, the second author asked what in the book would be interesting to discuss. The topic of Klein bottles was on the first author's mind at that moment, so he tried to describe and explain the form to her--a real…

In my classroom, a typical live demonstration often resulted in a crowd of fidgety, wiggling, middle school students standing on tiptoes and squeezing between others to see the easel. I struggled with finding ways to keep students engaged and focused when presenting new material. There were always a number of students who could not see the…

Students sometimes struggle with visualizing the three-dimensional solids encountered in certain integral problems in a calculus class. We present a project in which students create solids of revolution with clay on a pottery wheel and estimate the volumes of these objects using Riemann sums. In addition to giving students an opportunity for…

Tales of love and hate, of athleticism, heroism, devotion to gods and goddesses that influenced myth and culture are a way of sharing ancient Greece's rich history. In this article, the author describes how her students created their own Greek-inspired clay vessels as artifacts of their study. (Contains 6 online resources.)

As part of a Professional Learning Community (PLC), the author is asked to focus on the four essential questions of learning when developing projects: (1) What is it teachers want their students to learn?; (2) How will teachers know if each student has learned it?; (3) How will teachers respond when some students do not learn it?; and (4) How can…

Prior knowledge of hand-building and several weeks of practice throwing on the wheel allowed Jane Graziano, as guest artist, her students, and a high-school art teacher to focus on introducing works by artists who found inspiration from the sea: glass artist Dale Chihuly, clay artists Ken Price, John Bennett, and Vipoo Srivilasa to name a few. She…

In painting and drawing classes, it is typical to ask students to work directly from a master. It is one way to study composition techniques, and to become familiar with classical style firsthand. In museums, easels are set up as artists work, not in an attempt to copy or plagiarize, but in an attempt to be part of history by participating in it.…