Da Vinci's work in the 1500's resonates our 21st Century Performance
Standards and NCTM standards. Just as he was a futurist in his visions
of social and imaginative possibilities, so too, did Leonardo's methods of
planning, inventing, designing and picturing this future, reflect
millennium performance standards for mathematical teaching and learning.
Geometry and Measurement Concept
Leonardo worked with 2D and 3D figures and their properties, visualized
objects and described these.
In the Vitruvian Man Leonardo demonstrates the relationship between
geometric shapes and human anatomy.
Leonardo da Vinci Math Activity
He also used similar geometric facial proportions in all his portraits.
Problem Solving and Reasoning
Da Vinci's approach to the future, his inventions, his drawings of his
inventions are inherently wrapped around problem solving and reasoning.
He formulates problem construct approaches, as illustrated in the Codex,
The Mona Lisa Bridge, Bird, and Helicopter.
His clay model of the Bronze Horse is an example of
implementation.
Mathematic Communication
Leonardo's notebooks were mathematical communication with narrative
accounts of those processes, organization of his work and can be read by
his present day admirers as a writing about mathematics, art and
invention.
Putting Mathematics to Work
Leonardo was a very concrete and practical visionary who prefigured the
Putting Mathematics to Work standards by designing a tower, model horse,
and conducting a purely mathematics study of observing birds taking
flight.
Millennium mathematics standards focused teachers and learners can, as
we do for other visions of our time, turn to Leonardo for examples of
New Performance Standards application.
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For further information consult the following pages.