RAFT Hands-On Education

What do math and music have in common?  Numbers tell us a lot about music! Math explains why notes sound higher than others, why instruments look the way they  are, and why some sounds are more pleasing to the ear than others. Math and music  are universal languages and use patterns to convey meaning! On November 3rd, at this year’s Marion Cilker Conference at SJSU, RAFT’s  Education Team’s Jeanne Lazzarini and Dianne Hurvitz co-presented “Harmonizing  with STEAM Standards” on that very subject in front of enthusiastic SJSU students!  Participants tackled a Design Challenge creating music collaboratively out of recycled  materials and making connections with mathematics! This challenge also introduced  other opportunities for cross-disciplinary STEAM lessons in literature, technology,  engineering, and science! How can you generate curiosity about music and math Watch this fantastic YouTube video with your students : Landfill Harmon...

Recycle your materials into origami picture frames or greeting cards! “Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. Repurpose.” – One can learn so much about the environment while doing creative art projects from repurposed materials and offerings from Mother Nature! Fabric swatches, newspapers, plastics and other materials can be saved from the dump yard and converted into innovative gifts like fabric swatch notepads and origami picture frames. Celebrating the National Environment week, Resource Area For Teaching (RAFT) Redwood City is conducting a ‘ Great Ideas for Creating Re-purposed Gifts ’ workshop this weekend. Instructors Monica Lee and Dorothy Yuki, share their passion of using recycled and repurposed materials to create art from colored paper, plaster, tile, shells, beads, wood and many others! Monica who teaches craft workshops all over the Bay Area reflects, “On a practical level the materials we use are usually low cost or free to everyone. It opens the students’ mind to seeing everyd...