If the average Oak Parker is unfamiliar with the works of Leonardo Pisano Bigollo, also known as Fibonacci, they might be able to learn a few things if they walk through the underpass on Home Avenue.
A group of students and teachers at Brooks Middle School grabbed some paintbrushes last week to create a mural themed after the Fibonacci Sequence, the famed mathematical principal. Science teacher Phyllis Frick said it was about creating art through education.
“It’s a lot more than just pretty pictures,” she said.
The Fibonacci Sequence starts by creating a new number that is the sum of the previous two, than adding that number to the previous larger digit. For example, 1+1=2, 2+1=3, 3+2=5, 5+3=8, and so on. When represented visually it is known as the Golden Spiral. Both the sequence and it, and other related mathematical spirals, appear in biological structures throughout nature, from the human growth pattern to the spirals of a galaxy to the patterns on a sunflower.
(Photos: Students, teachers mix art and science)
The group painted the mural to reflect those scientific applications, such as the bones of a human hand and numerous plants and flowers.
Frick, who is also certified to teach art, came up with the idea during a book group meeting when she talked to Oak Park Education Foundation Executive Director Deb Abrahamson, who wanted to expand the summer program, BASE Camp, to include more art and science projects. They joined up with book club artist Christine Baumbach and local artist Jill Kramer Goldstein. The mural was completed Friday with 19 students from sixth to eighth grade.
“For six years, I’ve known that I’ve wanted to paint a mural,” she said.
Frick hopes to make the murals an educational series, with a variety of artistic projects that focus on scientific themes or figures. She hopes next year to repaint the west side of the same underpass in a meteorology theme.
She said some have already taken notice. Earlier in the week, a woman passed by the mural with her child and started an impromptu lesson on Fibonacci.
“That’s exactly what I have hoped,” she said.
