Several weeks ago Forest Grove Middle School geometry students went on an amazing field trip.
Below is Mr. Parkinson’s summary of this project and field trip.
The artwork of MC Escher has been the real-world model that I have used to educate geometry students about transformations and tessellations since I started teaching. To find out that the Vero Beach Museum of Art is currently hosting the world’s largest traveling Escher exhibit only meant one thing for my students and me – FIELD TRIP!!!!
In preparation for the visit, students completed an activity that consisted of researching and interpreting nine select pieces of Escher’s art currently on display in Vero. Students were required to research methods used to create Escher’s art and some of the real-world ideas and objects that inspired him. Impossible objects developed by physicists, landscapes resembling places where he lived and worked, and natural relationships in nature are just some of the topics that new art enthusiasts studied.
While at the museum, four lovely docents provided private tours to the students focusing on pieces of their choosing and engaged in discussion regarding Escher, his life, and the influence of mathematics in his art. Students discussed reflections, rotations, translations, and tessellation of the plane in addition to the various forms that Escher used to create his perplexing wonders. After a relaxing lunch in Riverside Park, the students returned to the museum equipped with clipboards, pencils, and a custom Scavenger Hunt where they searched for geometric-related phrases throughout the descriptions of art in the museum.
Once we returned home, the students finished one final activity related to Escher and his work. They were required to choose a piece of Escher’s art and perform geometry on it using software called GeoGebra. After importing an image of Escher’s art into GeoGebra, the students performed various transformations on the images in his work.
In summary, I feel honored to have exposed 95% of my geometry students to an art museum for the first time. I am grateful to the museum for hosting us and providing such an amazing space for us to continue our exploration of MC Escher and his amazing work. Most of all, I am thankful for my extraordinary students who embraced my passion for this topic and produced incredible work of their own.
