Math Up Yours

Today has been very interesting at the museum. Early this morning, I was able to explain my Math in the Museum project to a possible donor to the project--and she seemed very receptive to the program.

However, a little while later, Dale (who works in our back office) visited Ashleigh and I and decided to give us some serious blog material:
1. We learned about zombie fungus that grows on ants (Google it, or just look at Ashleigh's blog).
2. We were debating the use of the word "create" in science (I guess you guys discussed it in class) and she showed us the use of the word in many science state standards. She then gave us useful insight into other words that should be controversial, such as "genes" which makes people think of Genesis, and "moon" which may make people think of butts.
3. She showed us some caterpillar poop, which may not seem interesting BUT did you know that ALL caterpillars have geometric shaped, well, holes to excrete their feces, so their poop looks like this:

Geometry in action, people.

4. Finally, we learned about some wasps that lay their eggs in caterpillars and then the larvae eats the inside of the caterpillar until there is an empty shell left, and then it's like a scene from alien when the wasp bursts out.

Crazy right? My last week at the museum and I'm learning so much in one day.

Week 11

So I counted this morning, and I only have (counting today) 8 more 4-5 hour shifts left at the museum this summer! That's both a good thing and a stressful thing. It is very stressful because Dr. Ellis gets back sometime this week or next, and I'm sure she has not looked over our guides that much, so in the last 38 hours I'll be in the office, I'll be correcting them and finishing any other project that she needs me to complete. Last year I stayed on at the museum after my summer internship to get class credit, but I don't think I'll be doing it this year because I'm graduating in December. So basically that means I need to have the guides 100% completed with all corrections by August 5th!

Anyways, this week Ashleigh and I are FINALLY going to be testing the activities. This has been postponed for the last week or so because the shark teeth took longer to paint than anticipated and we had issues getting all of the materials we need to test them. Honestly, the activities are pretty simple and straightforward (except for Ashleigh's "Dinosaur Density" activity), so hopefully we get good feedback!

There's not much going on other than that, so enjoy your week and see you all in class!

Week 10

This week has been very laid back--getting those museum activities ready to test out has taken a lot longer than anticipated. I did get done drawing all three posters to hang on the table (free handed, I might add -- stepping it up from the usual stick figures). Ashleigh posted pics of the posters in her Week 10 blog here: http://tuckeram.blogspot.com/2014/07/week-10.html.

Also, we painted shark teeth again this past Wednesday. I think we finally got the hang of it, so they look nice and will be a great addition to the museum activities that will go along with the docent tour this Fall when the Meg exhibit comes back to town.

I finished my poster for my project this morning--so that's a relief andddd I believe that is it. This next week I'm going to be finishing up everything because we have less than a month left!

See you in class!

Week 9: Pictures, Posters, and Peace

So this week has been pretty interesting. The guy came this morning to get pictures of Deanna, Max, Ashleigh, and I working at the museum. This ended up being a lot tougher than envisioned. First, because he came at 9am and the museum was not fully open to visitors yet, he got the third degree about why he was there. And secondly, there was major confusion over what exactly he was to take pictures of, with several museum staff interfering in the process, making the poor picture guy become less and less excited about his job.

When those were done, I've mainly had  some pretty peaceful time to work on my final project poster as well as a poster [pictured below] that will be hanging on a table where Ashleigh and I will be testing out some of our museum guide activities, hopefully later on this week. 

Hope everyone else is having a fantastic week!

Week 8

So, this week has probably been one of the least productive weeks all summer. Dr. Ellis is going out of town for THREE WEEKS, so she's been assigning us three weeks of work. This means that we have to ask her any questions we may have about these projects because she won't be able to be reached, but it is really difficult to predict any questions we may have, so Ashleigh and I have been staring at computer screens lately, trying to finish our projects as much as we can. Thus, there is really nothing new to update.

Hope you guys are having productive weeks!

Week 7

Really have very little to post this week, as I went in to work Monday for a couple of hours but took today off. I had to accept a scholarship this morning (yay!) and then finish unpacking from last week, finish my director duties for the Honors Camp this weekend, and of course catch up on sleep!

Basically Dr. Ellis is going to be out of town for about 3 weeks, so I believe the rest of this week is just going to be getting everything lined up so that we have stuff to complete the entire time. Shouldn't be anything too hard, but glad to be back!

See you all in class!

Week 6: ONE DAY WEEK!

Hey guys!

I know I said I'd post PART 2 of our Jax visit and answer the big question: why is there a deer on the ceiling? Unfortunately, this will have to wait, as I have temporarily lost the SD card that those pictures were on (aka I'm too lazy to post it this week).

I have finished ALL of my guides, except the 6-8 grade guide, but that's halfway done, so I'm getting excited about the other jobs Dr. Ellis will have me do, other than revisions. For example, today I had to zoom some instructions for a Discovery Room game on the copier, so that was fun, but today is the only day that I work, because tomorrow I'm getting ready to go to UNF for a RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Awards) camp, where we each have a group of high school students from all over Florida sponsored by Rotary Clubs to go to presentations and do community service with. It's all about teaching leadership and is my fifth year being involved with it. I'm pretty excited about this, as it lasts from this Wednesday to Sunday.

So, that's all I have for an extremely short week. I'll miss you guys in class!

Taylor Whitley
Intern at FLMNH
License to Math

Week 5: FIELD TRIP....get excited! (PART 1)

Ahoy!

All you need to know about this week is that we went to Jacksonville today. Sure, many of you may be thinkig, "gee whiz, it's only a city." For those of you that think this you really don't understand. Our day generally starts with walking to our office, turning on the computer, and typing the entire time, only stopping for lunch. In other words, it gets dull. So a trip OUT of the office on a BEAUTIFUL day like today was great.

Why did we go today? It doesn't matter--WE WENT. Just kidding, it matters. Ashleigh, Dr. Ellis, Ms. Dale, and I drove in a car to the Museum of Science and History (MOSH, see below) in Jacksonville to check out the Megalodon Exhibit, which is coming to our museum this fall. This is the same exhibit I'm writing my guides on, so it was super helpful to see it in person.

Here are a few highlights from the trip. Keep in mind that this is only part 1....part 2 comes next week.

This is the beginning of the exhibit...what you see "inside" the Megalodon. Those random people standing inside of it? They're not random, they're from the FLMNH exhibit team.

This is some of the "math" that I can use for the educator and docent guides: the correlation between the size of the shark tooth and the length of the shark.

SHARK JAWS

This is a jacket that a minor actor donated to the exhibit for the pop culture section of the exhibit.

I was "measuring up" against the length of different sharks.

This is a truly terrifying shark.

 

There were even dig boxes where kids could find Megalodon teeth...I found one!

Sneak peek from PART 2 next week....maybe I'll answer the question: why is there a deer on the ceiling?

 That's it for now! See y'all in class!

Taylor
Intern, FLMNH
License to Math

Week 4: Showing the Newbie Around

Hello all!

This week was slightly more interesting than last week, because of a school field trip and taking Ashleigh around the museum.

For the school trip, Ashleigh and I traveled to Stephen Foster Elementary to teach two classes of third and fourth graders about the Fossil Hall at FLMNH. They visited there a few weeks ago, but we got to give them a post-lesson, teaching them about measuring animals and so much more! The feedback was the worst out of all of our visits, which may be attributed to the gap between the visit to the museum and the classroom visit. Also, the second teacher held the teaching ideal that "if you yell it, they will respond." Unfortunately, no such luck on her part. Other than the kids walking around the classroom randomly, the lesson went well, and they were very interested in the otter (dead and stuffed, just to be clear) that we brought and seemed to retain a lot of information they learned. That was the last classroom visit that we have to do this summer, so whoot whoot!

Then, today Dr. Ellis and I took Ashleigh around the museum to see all of the exciting things and meet exciting people. We did have the pleasure of seeing Deanna (spreading her joy), Beth, Brooke, and Callum in the classroom, so that was cool. Then we saw Deanna on her way off work, and just a word of advice, don't get between her and the door! (Just kidding, Deanna, but not really). We got to introduce Ashleigh to the Dian(n)e's (see picture below), Darci, and Betty, as well as walk around the entire museum so that was a nice change of scenery.

Some good news is that we will probably be visiting the Megalodon traveling exhibit in Jacksonville sometime next week (road trip!) so I'll be sure to post lots of pics about it!

Until next time!

Taylor
Intern, FLMNH
License to Math

Week #3

Hello everybody!

There's not much of an update at this point. I took off Friday and Monday for Memorial Day weekend, so it was nice to go fishing with my family and such. But, the most exciting news of all is that Ashleigh is back in the United States! It is kind of nice to have someone working in the office on a different guide so I'm not having to talk to myself--not that I'm admitting to that happening.

But, pretty much I finished my K-1 Guide for Megalodon, and my supervisor Dr. Ellis has started to comment and review on it, so I'm just making corrections and starting my 2-3 guide. Ashleigh and I are going to Stephen Foster Elementary this Thursday to teach some of the 3rd and 4th graders about the Fossil Exhibit (we gave them a Pre-Visit and guided them through the museum a few weeks ago). It should be interesting, because their classes were a little rowdy when we did the pre-visit, but they seemed okay enough at the museum, so I'll be sure to give an update then!

Hope everyone else has a great week!

Week #2

Hello everyone! 

          My name is Taylor Whitley, I am starting my fourth year at the University of Florida, majoring in Mathematics, and will be graduating this December! This is my second year working with the Noyce Internship program, and I work at the Florida Museum of Natural History in the Center for Science Learning under Dr. Shari Ellis. Beginning last summer, I started on the creation of a “Math in the Museum” program, where I created guides (pre-lessons, museum tours, post-lessons, etc.) for K-2 and 3-5 grades for the Butterfly and Moth Exhibit here at the museum.

          Fortunately, this past spring I was able to go into the classrooms and test out these guides. Testing out the guides was probably the best thing for me, as I realized that there was going to be much work in the revisions to the project. We encountered several things that we were not accounting for in the original guides: varied levels of learning within the class, mixed-level classrooms, and other differences that we were able to revise and work out.

          This summer, I am starting to work on a mathematics guide for the Megalodon and Dinosaur named Sue traveling exhibits. There’s not much going on, and my partner, Ashleigh, is out of country (I’m super jealous), but I guess I’ll just show you guys where I work: 

This is where the magic happens people, and notice it is complete with a cup of coffee--much needed!

          Seriously, though, creating the guides involves a TON of research and computer work, so my supervisor Dr. Ellis is always telling me to get up, stretch, and walk around the museum. Because of these breaks, I’ve been able to learn a lot about the exhibits within the museum!

          Once I really get started on making the guides, I’ll have more to share, and hopefully more pictures to fill you in with other than my desk, but as for now, that’s about it!

          Ooh, I almost forgot: I’m trying to take advantage of every resource that I have, so if you have any suggestions about math concepts found when studying sharks or dinosaurs, please share below in your comments! I’ve already covered measuring tooth size, how long the sharks are, and geologic time, so any ideas you have for any grade level will be much appreciated!

Thanks and see you all in class on Wednesday!