Educational
Projects:
- Costa Minimal Surface, a computer generated
video describing the geometry and topology of the Costa surface. This
video was on display at the Maryland
Science Center as part of the mathematics exhibit Beyond Numbers. A segment of the video shows how to make a torus
by connecting opposite edges of a rectangle.
- Interactive Java applets
that illustrate the concepts of Chaotic Dynamical Systems. In particular, Chaotic Billiards,
an interactive Java applet which illustrates the difference between
regular motion and chaotic motion using billiard tables of different
shapes.
- Cooperative
Learning. In my teaching, I use the methods of cooperative learning in
which students work together in structured groups
- Chaos and Computers Institute.
An two week summer institute for Philadelphia
school teachers about chaos theory and the use of computers in teaching.
- Computer
Visualization in Mathematics describing how computer visualization can
be used to give an intuitive understanding of complex ideas in modern
mathematics.
- Worlds
Largest Sierpinski Triangle. I have explored various interactive ways (with paper;
with K'NEX)
of making Sierpinski Triangles which are an intriguing, self-similar
fractal shape. My dream is choreograph a participatory project in which
students work together to create the World’s Largest Sierpinski Triangle
and thereby earn an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records.
After many years of dreaming, the Sierpinksi Triangle project out of K'NEX is about to happen: April 21 at Bryn Mawr and April 24, 2016 at the Wagner Institute.