Why does a golf ball have dimples? Who uses tea as currency? These were some of the questions being answered by museums across Scotland last week for Maths Week Scotland.
For Scottish Museums Day (3 October) we’ve rounded up our favourite activities from museums over the last seven days. Maths isn’t just for Maths Week Scotland though - many museums are continuing to run workshops or make their resources available throughout the year.
Weaving into Maths Week Scotland
North Lanarkshire Heritage Centre kicked things off with a weekend of drop in weaving activities plus special guests Sgioba Luaidh Inbhirchluaidh - Inverclyde Waulking Group - who performed some music of the weavers and demonstrated spinning and waulking.
Kipper and oysters
We learnt a lot from the Scottish Fisheries Museum #DidYouKnow series. Did you know boats have registration numbers just like cars? And that the angle of a dreg is important for catching oysters?
Weekend visitors joined Deborah and Laura from the Maths Department of the University of St Andrews to discover why golf balls have dimples, learned about the symmetry of golf balls, and their development from featheries to the modern ball.
Forensic Maths
Visitors to Surgeon's Hall Museums could get hands-on with the Forensic Maths drop-in sessions, estimating, measuring & investigating bones & surgical objects.
Money, money, money
Everyone at Museum on the Mound got involved with Maths Week Scotland – even Super Squirrel!
On Facebook they shared their best maths themed object. Would you have guessed what this is?
Several schools also joined in with the museum's digital workshop, and loved learning about the origins of money and finding out about different things used as money in the past!
Building a Pyramid
National Museums Scotland went right back to ancient Egypt for their inspiration for Maths Week Scotland with a brand new set of downloadable resources.
Explore how ancient Egyptians wrote and used numbers, discover how huge stones were moved across Egypt to build the pyramids and have a go at building your own ancient Egyptian model boat - like this primary school from Glasgow.
Ship ahoy
Winton Primary School from Ardrossan had great fun at the Scottish Maritime Museum in Irvine, learning about how maths is used in ship building.
Newtongrange P2 class took their first ever class trip to the Scottish Mining Museum and became Gem Hunters for the day!
Beating maths!
And the National Museum of Scotland rounded off the week with an exhibit on 'The Beauty of Maths: Tiling, Geometry & Art', hosted by the Open University, which proved popular with families.
Check out your local museum for maths events all year round. If you are a museum looking to take part and want to know what support is available, get in touch with info@mathsweek.scot
It's Spring in Edinburgh means, which means the return of the Edinburgh Science Festival (30 March - 14 April)! This years theme is Shaping the Future, and we've browsed through the programme to pick out some of our maths highlights for you.
To mark World Meteorological Day (23 March), we are delighted to share a guest post from Professor Sylvia Knight, Head of Education at the Royal Meteorological Society, to introduce their new Climate Change Concept tool and show how teachers can use it to support maths in the curriculum.
