An Autumn Blog to kick things off:

I was all set to kick off the outdoor mathematician blog with an epic video of team Outdoor Mathematician using innovative methods to find heights of trees in the beautiful lake district. I was all set with my clinometer, tape measure and trigonometree skills, Small was all set with her special upside-down walking method learnt on Cbeebies. Unfortunately Scientist Man and Maths Dog were experiencing technical issues with the actual tree measuring  with a drone and tape measure (further drone training and not chasing the tape measure training as appropriate will be needed before this audio-visual triumph is ready for you!).  Something to look forward to I hope……

Autumn Maths-

Symmetry has always fascinated me in the world around us and it is no more obviously demonstrated to us than when it lands at our feet in autumn. The two-fold symmetry of almost every leaf that falls at this time of year is both beautiful and intriguing. Even more so are some of the seeds that we also see- sycamore seeds develop as symmetrical pairs upon the tree but only really take flight to disperse on the winds when they split to become a single non-symmetric “helicopter blade”. The very specific design is required to gain lift and send the seed away from the tree for it’s future chances but it develops in almost perfect 2 fold mirror symmetry.

Falling leaves and seeds create so many other patterns too, from the drifts as they collect on pavements and lawns (mimicking the movement of both snow and sand drifts) to how they are caught around stones and obstructions in streams (similar to flow models around obstacles seen in glaciers and deltas). Seeds and leaves in rivers can highlight the flow patterns and draw our eye to normally hidden fluid dynamics.

Over future blogs I hope to focus on how some of these link into specific areas of mathematics and how we might use them in the classroom. For now though- they provide a beautiful distraction from constantly converting between miles and kilometres on my morning runs to see if “I can stop yet!”.