Project Overview

This book was created by seniors at High Tech High in San Diego, California. It is a product from a cross-curricular study of art and mathematics. For one semester, the students worked on a project in math class and art class that attempted to animate mathematical ideas and content through visual images, bringing the math to life, and at the same time working to animate artistic images with mathematical concepts.

At the beginning of the project, students visited art museums, began sketching and building miniature sculptures, and used Google SketchUp to create architectural plans. They considered their work from an artistic perspective and a mathematical perspective. There were three major individual products to the Calculicious project: a watercolor painting, an acrylic painting, and a sculpture. The students studied a modern artist and considered the geometric issues present in his or her work. They created art inspired by that artist, connected to the mathematical concepts they had studied.

Although the book’s subtitle is “Making Calculus Delicious”, the mathematical concepts illuminated by the artwork are not necessarily from the calculus; many illustrate content from geometry or trigonometry. 

The students created on online forum to critique and discuss their work. When creating this book, the students chose to include watercolor or acrylic paintings they created, explanatory text from the artist, and also selected critique and discussion from the blog for each artistic piece.

The completed book was published by blurb.com, and can be purchased from the website.