Activity: braiding rope with 7 strands
I grew up with long hair, and taught myself to french braid when I was about 9. I taught my kids how to make 'friendship' bracelets when they were quite young my daughter expanded on that skill to creating amazing workds of art with embroidery thread!
This activity stood out to me as my choice since I have experimented with braiding hair with multiple strands (to no avail). As when I had tried braiding hair, I found that with this activity I continued to fall into the pattern that my fingers were "used to" with 3-strand braiding and dropped the wrong double strands when i should have lifted them, and placed strands "over" others when they were supposed to go "under". What I noticed as the braid progressed was that it seemed that 2 braids were forming along the outside while an interesting chevron was forming down the centre.
Often in the Pre-school we fix our students' hair after nap time, or a really good outside play time. The children are intrigued with the over-under-criss-cross of braiding hair. I think it would be beneficial for young fingers to have a model of some sort where there is 3 strands made of shoe laces for students to learn to braid with! This extension of learning to braid at such a young age definitely brings Indigenous students back to the 'ways' of their Ancestors and allows for an appreciation of learning the pattern of over under.
Viewing: Vested Interest (Sharon Kallis)
I was drawn to this video -possibly because I have developed an affinity for vests these days(?) As it turns out, it was an intriguing video, I've always been interested in sheep sheering and the wool making process. I love making clothes as well, so I liked seeing this process of creating the fabric prior to sewing together a vest! I made a small felt square in our art course a few years ago, it was hard work for a small piece of fabric -I can't imagine the time and effort that goes into a very large piece that could be used to make a vest!Reading: Bohr & Olsen. The ancient art of laying rope.
My dad was a fisherman. He taught me to fish. He taught me to appreciate good quality rope -we couldn't afford good rope; I learned this from his being disgusted at always having to fix and repair the cheap "nylon" rope he was forced to put up with.
This paper begins with stating that ancient rope samples are shown to have been depicted in Egyptian hyroglyphs. At the Museum of Anthropology there are pieces of the remnants of an ancient fishing net used by my ancestors here on the Fraser Delta made from cedar. How amazing to think that something so integral to preserving life (fishing for food) could itself be preserved hundreds of years!
 | |
| https://pin.it/6kshLDC |
Bohr & Olsen state that the construction of a rope is geometrical (p.3) -having never seriously taken geometry this statment surprises me! As such, what an interesting concept to learn geometry with!
While this may not seem "rope" the construction is much the same. There are many different net constructions, with multiple weights, "...the physical forces that one strand is causing on another strand are indirectly implied, i.e. repulsions are assumed to be infinetly large when the hard-wall criterion is violated." (Bohr, 2011, p.4).
Hi Grace,
ReplyDeleteYour reflections are all so fascinating this week. I appreciate you connecting braids to Indigenous culture. I imagine different braids/twists/hairstyles can be found in many cultures - what a cool way to connect mathematics to 'real life'!
The concept of time in creating is also interesting. We certainly appreciate things (food/clothes/art/etc.) more when we know how much time went into making something (especially if it was our own time). It's also interesting though because the more time you put into something the better you learn and understand it. In math, and other subjects, students often quickly learn concepts, try to remember those concepts for the test, and then not think about them again until the next year when they are revisited in the curriculum. This brings up a lot of questions for me. How might time-consuming projects affect our students' understandings? Do we have the time for such projects in a curriculum that's so full? What creative solutions allow for such projects and covering content?
Wow, well made ropes are pretty incredible! Those ancient ropes and nets are a good reminder that mathematics doesn't have to be algorithmic, formulaic, pre-planned with pencil and paper. I imagine those ropes/net were created through a series of trial and error - trying something, learning from it, and improving it. Though seemingly popular in science, these processes of exploring, adjusting, and figuring out are often ignored in mathematics. But those ropes/nets are just one example of how effective that process can be!
You mentioned that it would be handy to have a template to teach braiding and I think Charli-Rae's pipecleaner idea would work really well. If you accidentally drop a "strand" it would stay in place rather than falling and getting mixed up with the others. That was always very frustrating when I would try to french braid my own hair so I rarely do it. Some of the braided hairstyles people can create are really amazing. I wonder if you could explore the different patterns made by different numbers of strands using a different colour for each strand. Do the colours just alternate? Does the pattern change if there are an even or odd number of strands? Once you see how the pattern works, can you create new patterns by making specific strands the same colours?
ReplyDeleteIt would not have occurred to me that rope or fishing nets could be made from cedar. How cool! Your comment about the nylon rope needing frequent repairs is also interesting. In my article, the authors claimed that of synthetic materials "nylon has better properties in dry condition, while polyester has better properties in wet condition" (p. 419) which seems consistent with your experience fishing. The article also discussed the tightness and angle of the twists gave a rope more or less "give" and fiber length impacted tensile strength. I am picturing cedar bark and I imagine cedar fibers would be very long, but not wound as tightly, making really strong rope and nets with good flexibility. This has me wondering what materials the indigenous people from my area used for ropes, and if they used different materials if the ropes had different purposes.
An excellent post and discussion! Thanks, everyone. There are some great questions and ideas. Grace, your story about the ancient fishing nets used by your ancestors is fascinating. Thank you for sharing. Like rope-making, there are certainly many mathematical ideas (physics and engineering, too) worth exploring in net construction. "[T]hese processes of exploring, adjusting, and figuring out are often ignored in mathematics." Great point, Charlie-Rae! I think a lot of it has to do with how much time we give students to explore mathematics ideas and how we give feedback.
ReplyDelete