Geometry Within Art

Authors:

Heather Yarborough and Emily Nielsen

Title:

Geometry within Art

Grade:

Integrated Disciplines:

Math and Art

NE Standards:

8.3.1 By the end of eighth grade, students will identify, describe, compare, and classify tow- and three dimensional geometric figures

8.4.6 By the end of eighth grade, students will use geometric terms and representations

to describe the physical world.

8.5.2 By the end of eighth grade, students will read and interpret tables, charts, and

graphs to make comparisons and predictions.

Objectives:

	Students will do a geometry hunt for shapes in the real world
	Students will find shapes within the artwork in the gallery
	Students will name the shapes found
	Students will make a graph to compare which types of shapes are used most often in the artwork they looked at

Assessment:

On day one collect lists to see if they came up with real places that you would find the listed shapes.

On day two collect graphs to see if students correctly represented data they collected.

Provision for Special Needs:

Teacher will walk with any students showing inappropriate behavior. Teacher will describe artwork to any student with sight difficulties. Teacher will help give direction to students unable to find shapes.

Materials:

	Clipboards for writing on
	Paper with shape list for day one
	Paper with graph already prepared for day two.
	Pencils for writing with

Vocabulary:

	Graph
	Triangle, pentagon, square, circle, oval, rectangle, parallelogram, trapezoid,
	Geometry

Procedures:

Anticipatory Set:

On the first day ask students where they see shapes. Help them to realize that they see them everywhere outside and in. Tell them that they are going to go on a hunt for shapes. They are to take a clipboard and pencil. They will have a list of shapes to look for and they will write down beside each shape where they located that particular shape. (I.e. next to circle they may write the tire on a car.) When a really good list has been made by each student, go back to the classroom to discuss.

On day two ask students if they remember making the M&M graphs at the beginning of the term. Tell them that you are going on a field trip to discover shapes. Talk about how they can show what they found. Tell them they will make a graph with shapes as one category and the amount found as the second. Then you will need to go over the rules that should be followed when inside an art gallery or museum.

Activities:

On the first day take students outside and let them start their hunt. Encourage each student to work with a pair or alone to get more areas of where they are seeing the shape. Give help to anyone who is having difficulty with any particular shape. Once there is a good variety of places where shapes have been found for each individual shape go back into the class and talk about what was found.

On the second day talk to the students about how math is used in art. See if they can give any examples themselves. See if they bring up geometric shapes and help them along if needed. Tell them that today they are going to a gallery to look at different types of artwork and they are going to look for these shapes within the artwork and that they are going to graph the results. Let the students know that they are looking for specific shapes and how many is found. Make sure each student has a clipboard with a graph on it and a pencil. Have them line up to go on the field trip. In the gallery watch for any inappropriate behavior and answer any questions they may have.

Closure:

On the first day, have an open discussion about why it was a good idea to look for shapes in everyday life. Ask if they have ever thought about being surrounded everyday by math. Talk about how this makes math important to our lives and see if anyone has changed their opinion about learning math.

On day two, come back to the classroom after the field trip and have the students discuss the results. Have each student come up to the board and write their totals for each shape above the name of that shape. As a class add up each column and write the total. Discuss which shapes were more common and ask why they think that may be.

Reflection:

The first day went really well. None of the girls really thought about math as a part of everyday life. They knew they saw shapes in things, but never really thought of it as a part of math. They liked going on the hunt and getting to be outside for a while. We really enjoyed this activity and feel it really changed some of the girls attitudes about math at least the geometry part! We think using real world applications would be a good way to show the importance of other subjects as well.

On the second day, the students really enjoyed going into the art gallery to look at the art. They seemed surprised that the work was done by high school students. When discussing the results no one seemed surprised by what they found. We think if we did this in the future we would bring art into the classroom for a couple days before the field trip to give the students practice at studying art for other reasons than just looking at the picture. One of the first things they said was, “I don’t see any shapes.” We had to tell them to study the picture and not just glance at it. Over all we feel it was a good lesson and we enjoyed it with the students.

Contact Emily