Maths art and making · Maths CAS idea
Curate a maths art exhibition
CreativityServiceProject-ready
Organise an exhibition of maths-inspired art made by students across the school (fractals, symmetry, data art), with captions explaining the maths.
Where the maths comes in
Writing short, accurate explanations of the maths behind each piece.
Which CAS strand it fits
- Creativity: The arts, and other experiences that involve creative thinking.
- Service: Unpaid, voluntary work with others that also has a learning benefit for you.
Your CAS coordinator decides how an experience counts at your school. Strand summaries are provisional (our words, being checked).
How to run it
- Agree a space and date with the school.
- Invite submissions and run a workshop to help people get started.
- Select, hang and caption the work.
- Open the exhibition and collect visitor comments.
This can grow into a CAS project if your CAS coordinator agrees: see planning a maths CAS project.
How to evidence it
- Call for submissions and workshop plan
- Captions you wrote
- Visitor comments and numbers
Date everything and keep it in your school's CAS portfolio as you go. More on what counts as evidence.
Reflection prompts
Questions to think about, not answers to copy. Write your reflections in your own words, in whatever form your school accepts.
- How did you choose between submissions fairly?
- What did writing captions teach you about explaining maths?
- Which piece changed how a visitor saw maths?
Learning outcomes this often gives a chance to show
- Initiative and planning. What did you plan, and what did you have to change once you started? Who did you need to ask for permission or help, and how did you go about it?
- Collaboration. What did someone else bring that you could not have done alone? Describe a disagreement or a mix-up in the team. How was it resolved?
- Ethics. What choice in this experience had a right and a wrong way to do it? Whose interests did you have to protect (privacy, safety, fairness), and how?
Whether you meet an outcome depends on what you actually do and reflect on, not on the idea. Outcome labels are our short summaries, being checked.
Safety and ethics
- Credit every artist and get permission to display and photograph their work.
Agree every plan with your CAS coordinator first. Safety and ethics for maths CAS.
Sketch curves and patterns first in the free online grapher.