Fairbanks STEM Lab: Math Encounters Lab

Fairbanks Museum & Planetarium - STEM Lab: Math Encounters Lab - A Deep Investigation of Mathematics

Open to all, adults included, with a focus on middle/high school youth who want to do a deep investigation of mathematics. Mathematics illuminates patterns that abound in our world, making sense of sequences, designs, and structures. Math Encounters will stimulate inquiry, spark curiosity, and reveal the wonders of mathematics -- your world will never be the same!

· Third Saturdays, 2:00 - 5:00 PM, September 2019 - September 2020
· Instructed by Daisy McCoy, Christopher Kurdek, and Theodora Montague
· Limited to 20 students
· $250/student
· Contact the Museum for multiple family member payment options - Leila Nordmann -
lnordmann@fairbanksmuseum.org or 802-748-2372

Math Encounters Kick-Off: September 21, 2:00 - 3:30 PM in the lecture room at the Fairbanks Museum & Planetarium. Guest lecturer Ethan Bolker, Professor of Mathematics Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts-Boston is presenting "You Are a Super Star." Join us as he weaves together history, art, math, and twelve five-pointed stars, creating your very own stellated dodecahedron to take home. What does a dodecahedron look like? Come to the museum to find out! Paper printed and laser cut by The Foundry will be made available at the event. This pre-Math Lab event is free and open to everyone.

Prof. Ethan Bolker just presented this program at the National Museum of Mathematics in NYC:
https://momath.org/civicrm/?page=CiviCRM&q=civicrm/event/info&reset=1&id=1589&am[...]r=1

Ancient Greek philosophers modeled the world with the four essences: earth, air, fire, and water. Plato then attached those to the cube, octahedron, tetrahedron, and icosahedron, thinking of the dodecahedron, the fifth regular polyhedron, as representing the universe. Centuries later Paolo Uccello, Johannes Kepler, and M. C. Escher explored a new type of dodecahedron built entirely from pentagrams (five-pointed stars) instead of pentagons. Join mathematician Ethan Bolker as we weave together history, art, math, and twelve five-pointed stars, creating your very own stellated dodecahedron to take home!

This event kicks off the monthly meeting of the Math Encounters Lab.