Incorporating Art in a Math Class

A piece of art that I found in the UGA Museum of Art was this stained glass piece depicting St. George and the Dragon done by Louis Comfort Tiffany. The complete description read, "Window depicting St. George and the Dragon, ca. 1880-1920, by Louis Comfort Tiffany and studio." Since my area of specialization is math, I was trying to think about how you could use this piece of art to also teach math concepts. There are many geometrical shapes within the stained glass that could be talked about and discussed. You could print out copies of the picture and ask students to find as many different shapes as they can and then have them discuss with a partner the different shapes that they found and also discuss what it is about that shape that makes it what it is. For example, “I found this square. I know that is a square because it has four equal straight side and four right angles.”

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I was also looking at as a way to incorporate and talk about fractions. Within the chest plate of the figure displayed, there are three main colors that are all of equal or similar shape and size. There are shades of green, yellow, and orange. As a teacher, you could discuss how together, all of these parts make up the chest plate and that the chest plate is the unit amount or whole. Then you could have the students find the fractions that each color make of the whole/unit amount, which is the entire chest plate. So, if there are 100 pieces that make up the chest plate and 21 of them are shades of yellow, then yellow is 21/100 of the chest plate. You could also lead a discussion about decimals and percentages because 21/100 is also 21% of the chest plate or .21 of the chest plate. You can have your students find these fractions, decimals, and percentages by printing out copies of the art and giving it to them. Once they have determined what each color makes of the whole, they can share with a partner their findings and how they find each fraction and then converted that into decimals and percentages.

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