We look at the role of realism in the mathematical imagination of students as shown in a secondary level school book in Quebec. Our thesis is that not all realism is good, and may in some cases backfire and cause students to lower their appreciation of mathematics.

Calculus: The Musical! is a comic "review" of the concepts and history of calculus.

This talk will highlight how students (including struggling students) explore their own creative sculptures to learn mathematics. Several examples will be drawn from the work of George Hart (Compact Disc Truncated Icosahedron Sculpture) and Nat Friedman (Minimal Surface Soap Films) that students can use as catalysts for their own ideas.

What if we were to give children a lot of experiences with paper folding: what mathematical ideas could emerge from that? Are there interesting, powerful mathematical ideas that can be embodied by paper folding?

During the Renaissance, artists began to study the model of nature more closely and to paint with the goal of greater realism. This realism was achieved with the use of geometry. Join our sweeping trip through the Renaissance and learn the secrets of artists in their attempts to deceive the eye.

Our work is inspired by ideas outlined in the book Imagining Numbers (particularly the square root of minus fifteen), by Harvard University mathematics professor, Barry Mazur (2003). Mazur's work outlines and describes the imaginative work of mathematicians. Mazur's work led us to question whether the features and steps of his re-creation of imagination in his text could be appropriated as a pedagogical framework in a middle-school setting. Consequently, the research questions guiding this work are:

(1) How might teaching and learning mathematics be structured as "a way of imagining"?
(2) What are we attending to pedagogically when we are teaching mathematics as "a way of imagining"?

Songs and performances to spark the mathematical imagination.

I will share a math performance that was part of the TDSB summer Math-e-Motion program.