Maths in Museums

 This page is intended as an ever-growing list of resources related to Maths in Museums.

Why?

• Mathematics is a fascinating subject with enormous breadth and relevance to all walks of life, with potential to enrich, extend and empower people and their experiences whatever they do to live, thrive and survive.
• Museums are a force for good, helping us to learn about ourselves through the lenses of their stories, objects and collections, and breaking down barriers between local, national and international communities.

Both have great potential to aid the development of the other:

• A seam of mathematics runs through every museum's story and mining this opens up that story to new audiences, not least secondary schools which often need explicit links to Core subjects such as maths in order to be able to justify a visit. Beyond this, an open mind to mathematical processes opens the door to new ways of working with objects and collections, and learning from data related to them, unleashing untold stories hidden within.
• Museums have enormous potential to help right the wrong that British society has committed against mathematics for some time: as a culture we are only too happy to denigrate mathematics, both as a subject to study, and as something to have an informal interest in. It's normal to hear people proudly say "I've never been any good at maths" in a way that just doesn't happen with, for example, reading and writing. Embracing the part that mathematics already plays in their story (rather than hiding it, or pretending it doesn't exist, as is so normal in our modern world that we don't even notice it happening) will allow museum visitors a safe space in which to have their preconceptions challenged, and to experience the wonder of mathematics for themselves, without the pressures of society at large's negativity towards it.

How?

As I have said above, every museum's story has a rich seam of mathematics running right through it. Unfortunately, modern Western society's habit is to bury this to the extent that it can't be seen, often to the extent that its existence is completely denied! I've heard many a museum's staff say "but there's no maths in our story," and every single one of them has been wrong.

Finding the maths in your story is the first step towards putting that right. The collection of resources below will help, but you could also work with a consultant like me who is experienced and enthusiastic about digging up the maths that society works so hard to bury!

What?

Examples of Maths in Historical Stories

• Historical stories involving maths

at The Actual Maths

• Projects I've contributed to

Items in the "portfolio" section of my website tagged with "maths".

General Resources

• Maths Year 2000: Ideas for Museums, Galleries & Heritage Sites

The year 2000 was designated "Maths Year 2000" by the Department for Education & Employment (DfEE), aiming to raise the profile of mathematics in the UK. The Museums Association's response was to commission a publication collating ideas for museums wishing to produce mathematical activities, presenting an A to Z of project examples from museums, galleries and heritage sites around the UK. The booklet was sent out to members for free towards the end of 1999, but is hard to get hold of today. One of its creators, Vee Walker, has come to the rescue, photographing every page and posting it on her blog at the link above.

It's a little out of date (as many of the people and projects mentioned are no longer to be found), but still contains many great starting points for dabbling with maths in your museum!

Museums with Maths Activities, Sessions & Programmes

• Bletchley Park

I was Learning Manager at Bletchley Park for almost 8 years and in that time saw it grow from a relatively small (though already popular) on-site schools offering to a an award-winning multi-faceted learning programme. For that entire time, maths was a key component of the offer and in the latter years of my time there we won an award for Best Venue for Maths Learning three years in a row.

An important, and unusual, fact about our programme was that we hosted far more visits from Secondary Schools than from Primary Schools (and we didn't lack Primary School visitors at all). Most museums have significantly more Primary than Secondary School visits, and the maths angle is not coincidental to this: Secondary schools need strong Core subject links to justify taking a class (or year group) out for the day, and we had Secondary school groups coming back year after year, citing the maths content as something that they just couldn't get elsewhere.