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Subject:
From:
Diane Gutenkauf <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informal Science Education Network <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 31 May 2005 10:32:09 -0400
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ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
*****************************************************************************

Two museums I can think of off hand have incorporated math as part of 
their exhibits and programs: The DuPage Children's Museum which has a math 
exhibit and an on-line math page called "Aunty Math" 
http://www.dupagechildrensmuseum.org/aunty/index.html

and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden which incorporates math exercises into 
it's Children's Gardening program to show (as I recall) math as part of 
everyday life as it relates to gardening.) http://www.bbg.org

If you're interested in pursuing who's using math in museums, you might 
look to Botanic Gardens/Arboreta.

As for the failure of New Math...I was taught New Math in school. I have 
lots of ideas regarding its failure, many tied in to the increasing 
availability of computers, the sophistication of their operating systems, 
and the absolute insanity of trying to teach 9 year-olds to think in 
binary terms. Come on, who's idea was it to teach 3rd graders set theory 
anyway? I can still multiply complex sets but have absolutely no 
application for it in the real world. Geometry I use, adding strings of 
binary numbers...never! 

Regards, 
Diane "anti rote-memorization" Gutenkauf

On Mon, 30 May 2005 20:36:12 -0700, Wayne Watson 
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
>Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related 
institutions.
>**************************************************************************
***
>
>Yes, what did go wrong? I believe that got rolling in the 70s but 
somewhere a
>long the line went out of style. Did something replace it?
>
>Do museums get concerned about math? I'm not even sure the Exploratorium 
in San
>Francisco pays much attention to it. Of course, there's the Mathematica 
exhibit
>that stil can be found in a few places around the U.S. that was created 
in the
>60s, but that's the biggest effort that I know about or can recall.
>--
>              Wayne T. Watson (Watson Adventures, Prop., Nevada City, CA)
>                  (121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
>                   Obz Site:  39° 15' 7" N, 121° 2' 32" W, 2700 feet
>
>                 "The easiest way to refold a road map is differently."
>                         --Jones's Rule of the Road
>
>                         Web Page: <home.earthlink.net/~mtnviews>
>
=========================================================================

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