Using Math to Create Art

Calling all math lovers! Check out this great project that 8th and 9th grade students in Math Teachers Lauren Fletcher and Dr. Jody’s Marberry’s Integrated Math I Accelerated classes recently completed: a Function Translation project using Desmos, an online graphing calculator. These « mathmagicians » were tasked with demonstrating their knowledge of parent functions and translations (horizontal and vertical shifts, reflections across the x and/or y-axes, etc.) to make graphs. Graphed lines were then given domain and range restrictions to create student-designed specific images. Their creativity can be seen here:

Soccer

Alien

At Sea

MICDS Logo

Minion

Kermit

Sushi

Students reflected on the project when asked about what they found to be the most challenging part:

  • Making sure it met all of the requirements.
  • Using Desmos, and getting the functions to look how I wanted them to.
  • Finding a way to include all the function transformations while making a picture that looked realistic or cool.
  • Coming up with an idea and then graphing it.
  • Being creative when there were so many requirements and restrictions. It was hard to keep track of what I did and what I had to add.
  • Thinking of an idea of what to put in.

What did they learn about functions, translations, and/or graphs that they didn’t know before?

  • I learned a lot about absolute value graphs and reflecting them over the x and y axes.
  • I didn’t know how to properly use Desmos and how to actually graph functions using Desmos.
  • I learned about reciprocals and how they are graphed.
  • I learned how to do a lot of things in Desmos that I didn’t know before. I also learned that graphing can be a cool way to create art and is sometimes easier than using paper.
  • I learned that functions can be translated very easily.
  • I knew all of the translations, but I didn’t know how to graph them. I now realize how hard it is to graph translations.
  • I learned what sin, cosine, and tan look like on a graph.

What great projects, math students!