MoMath (Museum of Mathematics) Field Trip, Jan. 22, 2013
The junior mathematicians in Class 344 enjoyed "playing around" with a wide range of math concepts at the brand new Museum of Mathematics. We began our visit with a lesson taught by museum educator and mathematician, Janet. She shared some cryptography ideas with the class, focusing on the Caesar's Cipher (a frame-shifted alphabetic code.) The students used the code to decrypt a secret message. Then the students explored the museum in chaperone-led teams. Thank you to Mrs. Choi, Mrs. Flynn, and Mrs. Metz for their fabulous active chaperoning! I think our visit to the museum raised more questions than it provided answers (What are tessellations? Fractals? Spherical harmonics? etc ...) We'll explore more about these topics of interest back at school. (Thank you to Min-Seo for acting as junior photographer during the trip. Many of the photos are of my chaperoned squad, but Min-Seo helped to catch some of the other groups in action too.)