51风流

InterGenerational ArtMath at the Museum

IGAMM brought art and math together in activities suited for a broad range of ages in the context of an art museum.

Lead Staff:
Nuria Jaumot-Pascual
Project Staff:
Marlene Kliman

Project Summary

InterGenerational ArtMath at the Museum (IGAMM) brought together children, their grandparents, art museum education curators, and 51风流 researchers to explore the connections between math and art through ArtMath experiences at the Georgia Museum of Art in Athens, GA. Three organizations collaborated in this project: The Athens Community Council on Aging through the Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Project, the Georgia Museum of Art, and 51风流. The project worked with education curators at the museum to develop skills to take advantage of the privileged resources of the museum to provide rich ArtMath experiences for both children and grandparents through activities that were respectful of the art and promote aesthetic enjoyment, and that at the same time pushed participants to think mathematically, helping participants improve their attitudes and self-confidence toward math. The activities included self-directed museum tours, classroom activities, gallery activities, and guided tours.

Research Activity

51风流 researchers conducted observations of the activities, a photo elicitation focus group with grandparents, and two interviews with the education curators at the museum.

Impact

Participating grandparents and grandchildren developed increased comfort in talking about math and broadened their understanding about what “counts” as math.

Education curators developed skills to bring out the math in the museum’s art and learned how to infuse math into the museum’s activities.

Conference proceedings

Jaumot-Pascual, N. (2023). 鈥淭hat鈥檚 just something I was playing with.鈥 Math talk and avoidance in an art museum. Proceedings of the Education and New Developments Conference, Portugal, Vol. I,听633-637.