Black lights, neon paints bring new life to math

The middle school Explore Room was transformed into a blacklight math haven and students couldn’t get enough of it. While their upper school classmates participated in Learning to Evaluate Action Program’s (LEAP) LEAP Term, sixth, seventh and eighth grade students took their project-based lessons to a new level, thanks to their teachers Mrs. Sutelan and Ms. Alt.

Over two days, students worked in the Explore Room using "dark light." The space was blacked out and black lights were added to create a festive environment for students to bring their creations to life.


The sixth grade created models of an indoor preschool play area using 3D figures such as rectangular prisms, triangular prisms, square and triangular pyramids. Students Zoomed with pre-Kindergarten 4 teacher Nicole Skees ’06 to gather information for their preschool area design project. 

“Mrs. Skees discussed what play, safety and design features students needed to consider with their play structures,” said Sutelan. “Students also created videos to share with the preschool students and teachers. The project themes varied from under the sea play, pretend grocery store, an arctic landscape to play with penguins, and an island oasis among others.”

Their Pre-Algebra 7 peers were challenged to use algebra to design a faux, glow-in-the-dark stained-glass window for the middle school using linear equations. Before they began their calculations, they Zoomed with Pat Langley of the Chrysler Museum of Art to learn how to make stained glass and learn about some of its uses. 

“While the students were not able to create stained glass windows using real glass, they instead used plexiglass panels for the window,” said Sutelan. “The colored ‘window panes’ were painted using clear glue mixed with neon-colored paint. The ‘lead’ was created using the linear equations and traced over with black paint mixed with white glue. Student work is currently on display in the windows at the entrance of the middle school.”
Algebra I students brought linear inequalities to life in the glow room when Ms. Alt took a regular lesson and designed it to engage students in an exciting way. After a quick review of linear equations, students had the opportunity to use individual whiteboards and highlighters to expand their knowledge of graphing to now include inequalities. Ms. Alt hoped for students to have a memorable experience while creating deeper connections with this material. 

“In moments like these, I am so proud to be a teacher and my heart ‘glows’ - no pun intended,” said Alt.  

“For the projects we wanted the students to make math connections to real-world situations in art and design,” said Sutelan. “We tend to think that math is more tied to engineering and science, but it can also be used in creating beautiful pieces of art and fun playscapes for children. Doing this project at the same time as the upper school LEAP Term gave the middle school students their own special week for investigative learning outside of their normal classroom experience. We are hoping to continue this next year!”
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