Estimation contests are a fun activity to include in your math exhibition.
A math exhibition is a dynamic, interactive way of making new math concepts engaging and understandable for your students. When organizing an exhibition, consider the age, maturity and skill levels of all participants and visitors. Depending on your students, you may wish to involve learners in all stages of the exhibition planning, as presenters or simply as the audience.
Pi Day
To give your mathematics exhibition a theme, consider holding it on March 14th or 3/14, "Pi Day." Hold activities in honor of the mathematical figure, which rounds off to 3.14. Plan stations with various problem sets involving pi. Students move around the exhibition, solving problems at as many stations as they can. At the end of the exhibition, award prizes to the students who have solved the most problems correctly. Either as the prize or as general refreshments, you can serve pies of various flavors. As a fundraiser for future math projects or math supplies, sell tickets to sling a cream pie at a teacher or faculty member.
Behind-the-Scenes Math
You can involve your students in many stages of exhibition planning and improve their math skills at the same time. For example, your students can help to determine the exhibition layout. Tell them how many booths or stations you wish to include, the measurements of a single booth and the total room dimensions of your venue. You can also ask for students to manage the exhibition's budget. Give them the total available budget for the occasion and then have them research costs of various aspects and allocate a certain percentage of the budget to each need.
Math in Nature
For an exhibition with plenty of visual aids, mine nature for examples of mathematical principles. You might use a nautilus shell as a representation of a logarithmic spiral or a five-petaled flower to demonstrate pentagonal symmetry and golden triangles. Have students research the mathematical basis of other common forms found in nature, such as pine cones, leaf shapes or the faces of sunflowers. To give the exhibition an interesting sequence, organize individual booths from small to large: you might begin at a microscopic scale and eventually work up to the scale of galaxies.
Bring in History
Typically, math classes permit little time to attend to mathematical history. To give your students some idea of the development of the discipline over time, give your math exhibition an historical theme. Encourage creative and interactive touches, beyond simple biography. For example, you can have each student re-create a scene or an illustration of a mathematical discovery. Give extra points to students who dress up like famous mathematicians.
