Highlights
Students Mix Music and Mathematics
Washington State University’s CREAM (Culturally Relevant Engineering Applications in Mathematics) program utilized collaboration with teachers at the Pullman High School to change students’ attitudes towards math and engineering. Specifically, the Mathematics of Sound activity provided a hands-on project for student teams to explore and understand the mathematical principles governing sound.
The culmination of the project saw students building their own novel musical instrument. Students benefited by experiencing a real-world application for mathematics while simultaneously participating in an engineering design activity. Project highlights included a number of female students who had positive bonding experiences with their fathers while working on building their instruments. In addition, numerous students came to an understanding that success is often dependent on working well with others and being able to “abandon bad ideas” during the design process.
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