Reflections on Nature's Designs

 Sit-Spot Reflections

Today I noticed the Sun seemed brighter and more piercing, the air felt icy, and the high-pitched squeal of the tractor seemed to constantly intrude on my thoughts. I then started to focus on some spider webs that I noticed in the branches, and how sometimes they were obvious and then at other times they were invisible. I also noticed how I couldn't capture them with my camera and how this was representative of an experience that cannot fit on pen-and-paper or neatly in a box, but needs to be experienced with our own organic senses.

Musings on a Sprider Web

Machine, metal, leaves, wood - no place that fits...

Intricate - understood, a pale comparison to man's technology,  yet unreproducible...

Invisible - divine presence teasing the limits of modern eyes...

Intimate - born from life, for life, yet not living...

A lacey tendril suspended between two worlds - thought and feeling -

life's breath...

Reflections on leaf Geometry

It felt quite foreign and challenging to begin the task of turning nature into geometric pattern s, but it was ultimately very enjoable and relaxing. The more we looked at our leaves, the more patterns we saw, and the easier it became to think in this free and open way.

This is an acivity that I would definetly like to do with my classes. Just taking the time to get outside, sit with nature, and be open to whatever thoughts come is very valuable. I may follow up the activity by having students think about connections and relationships between objects we see, e.g., a tree has a certain amount of branches that then have leaves, etc. It may be a way of taking some of the fear and intimidation of mathematics away, and building up our own organic ways of forming logical structures and discovering relationships, connections and patterns. Being outside it also a great way to introduce spatial relationships and the need to be able to describe and know where we are.