News and Events
Math concert
Online
Wednesday, Feb. 17, 7 p.m., ET
Cost: Free
Register
Concert teaches math lessons
Math can be challenging but it can also be fun. In particular, music is one way to show that it’s fun to learn math. With that in mind, the Faculty of Education is taking music one-step further and is hosting a math concert for students, parents and teachers.
The performance will celebrate mathematical thinking and listeners will experience math as a human activity that can be discussed with family and friends just like how they’d discuss a favourite book or movie. What’s more, they can also sing songs during the concert.
“We want to bring some joy and a sense of wonder during these challenging times,” said organizer and Education professor George Gadanidis. “The music will share cool ideas about math.”
Most of the musical lineup will explain what children learn in today’s classrooms, such as Growing Patterns.
Gadanidis added these songs will also share mathematical research that he and his colleagues, Immaculate Namukasa (Western), Janette Hughes (Ont. Tech), Ricardo Scucuglia and Marcelo Borba (UNESP, Brazil) have done in schools in Ontario and Brazil.
The Parliament family, Ricardo Scucuglia and Victoria and Connor Smith are the headline act. The upcoming concert will be a homecoming for most involved in the project. For eight years, Gadanidis was a bandmate with most of these members. They performed their work, funded by the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences, in schools throughout the region and across Southern Ontario.
At that time, Ian Parliament was the lead musician while Scucuglia was one of Gadanidis’ PhD students and VictoriaSmith was one of his Bachelor of Education students at Western.
The concert is free but families need to register. Once they’ve registered, the concert link will be sent to them just before the program starts. Lyrics will also be sent, allowing everyone to sing along.
