Celebrations of Learning - Spring
Exploration Classes:
Mythologies and Mythmaking
Oklahoma History
Problem Solving by Design
Trig & Pre-Calc
Mythologies & Mythmaking
Averi L.
My artifacts are based on the poetry I wrote for this course. I chose to do headstones symbolizing what was dying in each poem, while also matching the headstone to the culture or religion of the mythology that inspired my writing. In my creation poem, “terrestrial dawn” I exemplify the Native American value of nature and outline how humanity will thrive in harmony with nature, while cautioning that humanity will become stagnant and idle if nature is ignored. In my fertility poem, “the killer” (based on “Amerasutu” a Japanese fertility myth), I personify the snow as a masculine energy or voice, and explain how that patriarchal energy has harmed or silenced the feminine, while also outlining that women gave birth to every man that later grows up to oppress them. For my hero poem, “under the bodhi tree,” I walk through the enlightenment of buddha and explain how one walks the path of enlightenment and sheds their earthly being or their unenlightened self. My artifacts are representative of the cultural and creative aspects of mythology. Throughout this course we looked at how mythology created and fueled culture, and through reading we got to experience that culture and investigate what parts of those cultures we see today. I learned through writing my own myths in poetic form that writing mythology is a very imaginative and creative experience that allows you to explore or create cultures and customs through creativity.
Sam L.
My fertility myth is all about dogs, and the main character is Madame Duchess Corgi. My Celebrations of Learning artifact is Madame Duchess Corgi’s dog tag. I used wood, and I cut it out with a jigsaw. I then sanded it down with a belt sander and drilled a hole in the top to connect it to a collar which I then painted gold, finally painting the blue crown onto the tag’s front. You can read more about Madame Corgi in ‘A Local Food Shortage Turns Into Something Great For The Town of Old Bone.’ I really enjoyed this class and enjoyed making my artifact. Please go read our collection of myths that we worked very hard on.
Preslie N.
Fletcher G.
Hello, my name is Fletcher Graham. My Celebrations of Learning artifact was a mask. This mask relates back to my original myth entitled Giron Gives the World Fertility. My main character used this mask to stay alive as he battled a deadly condition of skin cancer. I thought this was the most important object within all of my myths. Thank you.
Madisyn K.
For my Celebrations of Learning artifact, I made a necklace out of clay with a leather string. This necklace is in both my fertility and hero myth. One of my main characters, Luna, wears this like a magic talisman in order to remain and maintain her human form.
Will M.
My Celebrations of Learning artifact is a clay art piece that consists of clay hands forming little clay people. I made this because in one of the myths we read, The Creation of the Universe & Ife, there was a god who climbed down to earth, and made little clay people that would later become humans. The reason I chose this artifact is because I had never done any COL project with clay in it, and I thought it would be fun and descriptive to what we learned.
Tegan B.
Kt H.
For my Celebrations of Learning artifact, I decided to remake the dolls from my creation myth. In this myth, Terra - the main character of the narrative - creates “dolls” that later turn into humans. I used some straw to build the body of the doll and had twine to tie the arms and body together. I also decorated the dolls with some flowers from my backyard to symbolise the Odin Fleurs that appeared in each of my stories.
Sayer D.
My Celebrations of Learning artifact is based on the stone of wisdom from Celtic mythology. In Celtic mythology, the stone is very large and is not something you’d be able to hold nor is this something that is carved. But, in one of my original stories, this is how I reimagined it. It is something that represents a people, not an idea. It is not a carving of a god or something far removed, rather it is just a person - it is personal. This is something I imagine you could set on a mantle above the fireplace, or something that is always there, but not always paid attention to; however, when you notice it, you remember the lesson that it is supposed to teach or the ideal it imparts. Live with wisdom in everything. I chose this path, because it is how I interpret myth today. It is a story to teach a lesson and an ideal.
Blayklee V.
Oklahoma History
Jack Henry L.
My project is a color pencil and marker drawing of a Civil Rights sit-in, relating to the Clara Luper sit-ins that happened in Oklahoma City. I was inspired to create this piece, because I thought that the sit ins were such an interesting situation. The Oklahoma City sit-ins are not talked about as frequently as other sit-ins, even though the OKC one was one of the first series of sit-ins across the country.
I would like for people to learn that the sit ins were done in peace, but people reacted with violence. This is why I made the sitters in green, to represent good intentions, then the crowd in the back red, for violent intentions. Then because of the movements that have gone on recently, there are emojis around it, to help relate the past with the present. I hope that people will pay attention to how people react to things, either good or bad. A situation is able to change from how a person reacts to their situation. If people react with a manner of violence, the situation will be violent, if the situation is reacted to with no violence, the situation will not be violent.
I learned that the OKC sit-ins went on for more than a few months--they went on for years. Then, once they finished with the sit-ins, Clara Luper moved on to other major movements such as the OKC sanitation workers strike of 1969.
My drawing is done with prisma color pencils and markers on watercolor paper. I used markers for the base, and went over it with color pencils for a smooth look.
Clara Y.
For celebration of learning, I created a Prezi slide show about three Oklahoma artists, highlighting their different backgrounds, communities, and individual perspectives. Three Oklahoma artists in particular are highlighted here: Nan Sheets, Woody Crumbo, and Tatyana Fazlalizadeh.
I was inspired to make this project by learning of the ways in which marginalized communities have their histories and perspectives erased or altered for the sake of the larger narrative. I wanted to show that there is no one perspective that can encapsulate the true narrative, thus making it important to celebrate our differences and elevate the stories less told. Through making this project I learned that art is a valuable form of expression when it comes to perspective. Culture and community can become central to an art piece or an artist’s work, and through examining art it is possible to gain a better understanding of our fellow human beings. See full presentation here.
Emma C.
My project is a timeline of Oklahoma City, starting with the April land run of 1889 and ending with the Murrah Building bombing of April 1995. I got the idea for my project from Sam Anderson’s Boom Town. The book talked about the history and timeline of Oklahoma City and I used it to choose the events in the timeline. I want people to learn something they didn’t know about Oklahoma City. For example, how many people came to the landrun, or how the governor of Oklahoma had his secretary steal the state seal from Guthrie and bring it to Oklahoma City. More recently, how the MAPS project saved Oklahoma City after it’s crash in the 1980’s. I learned a tremendous amount about Oklahoma City history from making this timeline and using Boom Town to write it. View full Prezi here.
Hayes H.
My project is centered on propaganda and the major impact it not only had on Oklahoma but also the role it has had around the world. I found studying propaganda very interesting because I just didn’t realize how much it played a role in the creation of Oklahoma.
What initially interested me in making this project came from learning about David L. Payne and his boomer movement to take unassigned lands in central Oklahoma for themselves. He was very influential and his propaganda had a huge influence in creating Oklahoma.
I would not only want the readers to learn about the major influence propaganda had on Oklahoma. I also wanted to give people a better understanding of what propaganda is, how it was used, and how it still used today. And of course, I would like others to learn a bit about David Payne and his Boomer Movement to open the unassigned lands to the public.
I learned a tremendous amount about Oklahoma during the course of this project, and I also got a much better understanding of propaganda and what it is, how it's used, and the tactics people use to make it more eye-catching. I also learned quite a bit about the land and the natural resources that lay in Oklahoma pre-statehood, and how those features were used to catch people’s attention to claim land or join the Boomer Movement.
Problem Solving by Design
Becca L.
My class was Problem Solving And Design, where we discussed and learned about different ways that math affects us and how we can use it in our lives. For my celebrations, I made a pyramid out of cookies and melted sugar which both need to be made at a certain point of heat for a particular time or else it will be burned and ruined. I used the math that we learned to find the area of each of the sides of my pyramid. By multiplying base times the height divided by 2, we can see that since the base of my triangle is 10 inches and the height is 9 inches, then the area of one of the 3 sides would be 45 inches. Something I learned from this project was how delicate baking is. Because I had to boil sugar, I just thought I could put it in a pot on high, and it would be fine, which it wasn’t. It ended up burning a lot, and I had to start all over and be patient so that I wouldn’t burn it again. For my celebrations I want the audience to take away that math is a crucial part of things that we do daily, whether it be something at your job to something as simple as baking; it’s something we do daily.
Giselle L. - View full presentation.
Louis C.
Phierra H.
My project is a 3D design of a room that we had to create in our class. We all redesigned kingman which was our old school building and made it into a place to help the homeless. We were each assigned a room and we had to decorate and put furniture in it, My room was the coffee/dining area and my project reflects my room design that I made. My room that I had to work with was 30 x 30 which is 900 square ft. For my room I had to put furniture in it and my budget was 5,500. I had two couches,two skinny tables,eight chairs,one big table,one bar,one bench for the big table,and five bar stools. All my math that I used will be at the bottom.
1 couch was $999 and used 18.1% of my budget, I had two couches so my couches in total used 36.2% of my budget.
1 skinny table was $59.99 and used 1.0%of my budget, I had two skinny tables so my skinny tables in total used 2% of my budget.
1 chair was $37.99 and used 0.6% of my budget, I had eight chairs so my chairs in total used 4.8% of my budget.
1 big table was $229.99 and used 4.1% of my budget, I only had one big table so the percentage that the big table used on my budget is the same.
1 bar was $2,000 and used 36.3% of my budget, I only had one bar so the percentage that the bar used on my budget is the same.
1 bench for the big table was $120 and used 2.1% of my budget, I only had one bench so the percentage that the bench used on my budget is the same.
1 bar stool was $119 and used 2.1% of my budget, I had 5 bar stools so my bar stools in total used 10.5% of my budget.
My Math
How I got the percentage---
Ex: 999 over 5,500 and x over 100 [999 is the price of one of my couches, 5,500 is my budget, and when trying to find a percentage of something you do over 100 since percent is usually out of 100, we are trying to solve for x]
You cross multiply 5,500x = 999 x 100
5,500x = 99,900 [now you have to get x by itself by dividing 99,900 over 5,500]
99,99 divided by 5,500 = 18.1%
If I had more than one of something how did I do the percentage---
Ex: if 18.1% is the percentage of my budget for one couch then if I have two couches I just do 18.1 x 2 = 36.2%
Ella D.
My gummy bear project was based on my first class in Problem solving and design, inspired by the gummy bear toothpick activity we did. The hexagon itself is 5 in tall and 7 in wide, while the square stand was 5 in tall and also 7 in wide. Each triangle was 2 in all around and each square is 2.5 in all around! What I want people to learn from and pay attention to is the usage of triangles throughout the project, my hexagon is made fully of triangles and while my stands may be square they have triangles on opposite sides to balance it out, because squares itself would just fall over while triangles provide a firm base. Building a structure from just an image in your head and figuring out how to apply measurements to that structure helped improve my knowledge in measurement in general.
Q: Why did you choose a hexagon? A: at first I wanted to create a sphere but by accident I ended up with a hexagon which actually worked out for the better!
Q: How many gummy bears did you use in total? A: in total I used 110 gummy bears!
Q: How many toothpicks did you use in total? A: 179 toothpicks in total!
Olivia C.
My celebration project is about area. I found the area of my bedroom. I used that to figure out how my bed, tables and dresser fit in that area. I was inspired to do this project from when we did the reimagine kingman project. We designed a room for kingman to use as a shelter for the homeless. I hope people learn how math is used everywhere, even in our own bedrooms. The world wouldn't run without it. On my project you will see a key at the top explaining what each item is. The numbers in the middle show the area of my room and the numbers on the side show the measurements I used to get the area of my room. All together this was a very fun project and I enjoyed making it and learning how math is used everywhere.
Reagan O.
Caroline G.
My bridge is a visual Presentation of how triangles make our buildings, Bridges and architecture in general much stronger than just using squares. I first got the idea for my project when we learned about Triangles in architecture in the beginning of this term. My bridge is 26” Long, 5 ½” wide and 17” tall. Everything from the base to the top of the bridge has triangular shapes in it to make it stronger , though looking like a square even the base has triangular supports in the center of it. I wanted people to take away from my project that using triangles in our everyday life will make things stronger.
Spencer C.
Trig & Pre-Calc
Amber P.
In this project I made a crown using wire and a couple of beads. Within the design I incorporated the special right triangles. These triangles include the 45° 45° 90°, 30° 60° 90°, and 40° 50° 90° triangles. We spent a couple weeks learning about the trigonometric functions, in which these triangles are commonly used.
Along the base of the crown you can see many 45° 45° 90° triangles. These triangles are put together by the hypotenuse, which creates squares. The largest sized triangles are the 30° 60° 90°, and the smaller ones are the 40° 50° 90°.
James G.
The purpose of this Celebrations is to introduce the debate around math being invented or discovered or neither.
The inspiration for the Celebrations is the “Closer to The Truth” web series covering the same question. In the series, the interviewee’s are Roger Penrose, Steven Weinburg, and George Lakoff. Outside of this series there are a plethora of articles and debates over the topic that provide interesting insights and analogies.
What format of presenting did you choose?
To convey the debate I chose to do a video essay. The video essay format allows for the information to be succinct and visually engaging as the dialogue moves from introduction, to the overview of both the invented and discovered sides, to the side of neither.
I hope that something within the essay piqued my interest. For me, being introduced to mathematical theory made doing the math purposeful and interesting. And I hope that you're able to gain something more or similar.
Ryleigh K.
For my celebrations, I decided to do an abstract painting. The thing that I felt the most inspired to create art by was the cosine graphs, and waves. The way they are an up and down line flowing, and the frequency depends on each problem, I thought was very pretty. So, I decided to do a painting with green and pink, which I think were pretty colors and contrasted nicely for a project like this, and just kind of go for it. I thought the best way to approach this project would be to just start it, so I didn’t map it out or do any planning first. I used many different mediums, I used spray paint, acrylic paint, and fabric paint, to get different looks and textures.
Something I find interesting, and the main reason I decided to do a painting over this subject, was that you see this shape everywhere. You see this shape constantly, in nature in our everyday lives, it's so frequent to us. I found it interesting that every time we see this shape and pattern, and can be tied back into a cosine graph, an equation, or a wavelength. That was what inspired me to do this painting.
Christman C.
In this class we covered lots of material including algebraic equations, Trigonometry, and some calculus. Something that stood out to me in the class how equations looked when displayed on a graph. This made wonder if it was possible to create images or art on a graph using equations, and it turns out you can. My first image is of a mountain range in a sunset that is being reflected by the water underneath to mirror. All of this was done with only trigonometry functions like sin and Cosine and a quadratic equation. The mountains and it’s reflection are made with sin waves while the water below is cosine waves. The sun in the background was made with a quadratic equation. The second art piece is just an abstract image that I enjoyed. This was made with only quadratic equations using parabolas and circles. Looking below the images you can see the equations used for each piece, and there you can see how simple changes can affect the placements of all of these shapes on the graph.
Joanna B.
This term I was in the class Trig and Pre-Calc, and for my project I chose to create a video showing how to do the Pythagorean Theorem, with step by step examples. I chose this project because I found the Pythagorean Theorem interesting. I also wanted to show people that I understood the material, and I think the best way to do that is to show that I can teach the material with clear instructions. You can see throughout my project I did my best to make it colorful and attention grabbing, because I want what I’m teaching to seem less intimidating, more exciting, and joyful.
Randi W.
Trig and Pre-Calculus is an advanced mathematical course which explores various topics within trigonometry and pre-calculus. In this class, we learned concepts such as trig functions, sine wave functions, limits, and the binomial theorem. In my project, I created a short animation within the animating software Blender. The tunnel is filled with glowing triangles. Using trig functions and (name of non-right triangle process), I map out the triangle’s sides using the software’s x and y coordinate plane and mathematically produce the degrees and length of all their sides. I chose this project because I wanted to combine class content and 3D animation. The software uses a lot of mathematics in its design and production of content. During this process, I learned how to make a looping animation in Blender, generate triangles, and render the project in Eevee.
Sophia W.
This project is made to emphasize human’s ability to recognize patterns throughout the universe. I used a wood burning pen to carve the circle of fifths (a music theory concept which presents twelve chromatic frequencies in an order of perfect fifths [the notes on the outside are in a major key and the notes on the inside are in a minor key]) into a wooden board to express the ideology that sound is a physical thing that is merely represented through human measurement. It is concrete in the ideas that people have invented to express its being. I then drew a unit circle (a trigonometrical concept illustrating a circle of unit radius) onto a circular piece of plexiglass using dry erase markers to express two ideas. The first being that math is fluid; it is adjustable. Mathematicians are discovering new areas of mathematics constantly; therefore, it is unrealistic of us to assume that math is definite. The second being that the measurement of sound or music can only exist along with the measurement of other things, such as angles of triangles. Through this project, I hope for people to gain a greater understanding of the human reception to mathematics and the consistent patterns that appear throughout the cosmos.
Corban B.
My Celebrations of Learning is a 3 dimensional representation of a sine wave. I created 2 designs that I believe are a good representation of what a 3D sine wave would look like. My model was influenced by the concept of sine waves. I want people to walk away from this project thinking about how math isn’t just numbers on paper. Mathematical concepts and patterns inexorably surround us, whether we realize it or not. View Design 1 and Design 2.
Emma C.
My project is a representation of a unit circle. A unit circle is a mathematical tool used in trigonometry, it is essentially a diagram created to explain the proportions between lengths and angles, and by extension it is a circle with a radius of 1.
By always being a circle with a radius of 1, the unit circle is the most simplified version of these lengths and angles. This also means that the measurements from the unit circle appear in radians, which based off of the position in the unit circle also creates correlating fractions. My project is based off of these fractions, as the line rotates it creates different angles and triangles which relates mathematically to those in the unit circle. The moon signs also connect according to the fractions of the unit circle.
The unit circle was presented in this way to simplify a rather complex concept in a way that most people can connect with.
Kyla C.
My project is a graphic design art piece that represents the math that is hidden behind the structures of everything we see in this world. For my project, I created nature scenery out of right triangles to visually represent the Pythagorean Theorem. The Pythagorean Theorem invented by Pythagoras in 1900 B.C., is a theorem that states that any right triangle with sides “a” and “b” and the hypotenuse “c”, the sum of the two sides “a” and “b”, will always be the same as the square of the hypotenuse.
I was influenced to do my project from the article by Strogatz, Steven. “Einstein’s Boyhood Proof of the Pythagorean Theorem.” In the article it goes through Einstein’s life of proving the Pythagorean Theorem and shows how it gives you a totally different perspective on nature and in general the structures on this world. The Pythagorean Theorem can prove things such as time, distance, etc. Einstein was even able to prove a solar eclipse that took place in 1919 using general relativity.
My project is a visual representation of Einstein's Proof of the Pythagorean Theorem. Everything we see is made up of a certain structure and that structure can be proven further through the Pythagorean Theorem. It is one of the most fundamental subjects to learn and this could be because the fact everything we see in our world is made up of it. I learned many things from the Pythagorean Theorem, not just the formula but the relation to everyday use. It is a very important thing to know and gives a further explanation behind every structure we see in our world. See full presentation here.
Sylas S.
For my celebrations of learning project, I created a board game that serves as a fun way to practice some of the topics of the class. We learned a lot of different things in this class so one of the first things that came to mind was how can I tie a majority of the topics we covered into one project. That’s when the idea of creating a board game came to mind. I created this because I wanted people that play this game to have a different learning experience when learning about subjects like trigonometry or calculus. This was a fun project to create and I felt like I learned a little bit along the way.