Matematica in giardino

Overview & Synopsis

Is it possible to have mathematics experience in the school courtyard garden? Can we observe plants "with different eyes" and identify the connections between mathematical sciences and plant biology? This booklet contains and comments on three interdisciplinary activities that secondary school mathematics and science teachers can conduct in their classrooms, using the group laboratory work method. The proposed activities concern two apparently distant fields: geometry and botany, and are linked to the laboratory kit "Symmetry: mathematics in the garden" (http://specchi.mat.unimi.it/matematica/matematica_in_giardino.html). This work intends to provide teachers, and not only them, with an unusual classification tool based on symmetry and also with a look at topics that are little known to most people and not usually covered in the school curricula, such as floral diagrams and phyllotaxis.