It is basic mathematics, nothing beyond the multiplication table, but because it is a good story it stays in the memory. Through this game children are exploring a real scientific example. Each time they meet, the predator gets to choose one of the cicadas to eat.īut change the cycle so the predators are appearing every six years and the cicadas are appearing every seven years, and they don't coincide until year 42. As you go through the hundred years with the cicadas appearing, say, every nine years and the predator every six years, you will find that they coincide every 18 years. This story can be brought to life with children using drama and performing arts, by making numbers from one to 100 in the classroom and getting children to play the cicadas or the predator. Why? In doing so, they are less likely to come across predators that also appear periodically in the forest. They have evolved prime number life cycles. One type only appears every 17 years, another every 13, but none at 12, 14, 15, 16 or 18 years.
One of my favourite mathematical stories – a story that actually happens in nature – is of the cicadas in North America. Where would we be if our scientists and great innovators were not playful, creative types? So much knowledge is discovered through play because it also allows us to make mistakes, go down blind alleys, and see patterns at work. From birth, we are programmed to play, explore, and spot patterns useful for our survival. Play is related to experimentation, a strong element of maths and science. By exploring mathematical ideas through theatre, music and movement, children have a better chance of navigating the abstract side of the subject because they are able to visualise, play and make connections. The arts can be utilised to tell these stories, "rephysicalising" mathematics in the process. Mathematics is the language we use to navigate our physical environment in a scientific way. It is itself a creative subject, and it can be taught just as playfully as the arts. But mathematics isn't just a useful science. At primary school, mathematics tends to be presented technically rather than creatively. Mathematics is seen as a dry subject with a rigid structure useful, important, but not much fun.
Mathematics expert Marcus du Sautoy explains why art is an ideal vehicle for teaching mathematics and introduces a simple lesson idea involving the cicada and its predators.