Students collaborate to create mural in Math Quad

October 30, 2014 — by Katherine Sun and Eileen Toh

This year, the Math Club is planning to create a mural in the school’s Math Quad. 

This year, the Math Club is planning to create a mural in the school’s Math Quad. The project will be supervised by math teacher PJ Yim and organized by freshman Lillian Zeng, who plans to base it on a mural she once saw in New York.

After discussing the plans, students and the math department have agreed that the mural will showcase five great mathematicians — Euclid, Euler, Gauss, Leibniz and Mandelbrot. Its bottom left corner depicts the Falcon logo in addition to bleachers surrounding the Benny Pierce Field, which represent Saratoga High and how math ties in with students’ daily lives.

On the right side, there will be drawn houses and satellites that symbolize the Saratoga community and how math ties into society. The remaining two sections illustrate the past and the future.

Zeng has done a rough sketch of it on her Wacom drawing tablet.

“[The section that illustrates the past] is the foundation for what we have now and what we will have in the future, so basically, it’s like math builds upon math,” Zeng said.

Yim said that throughout the years, he has often seen lone students standing by the tunnel of the hallway in the Math Quad, especially after Math Club practices on Fridays. Yim figured that the walls should appear more uplifting and give students an image to think about.

The idea of a Math Quad mural is one Yim has brought up multiple times. For the past three years, he has asked multiple students to help organize and design a mural, but while many agreed that it was an interesting idea, no one was willing to take on the project.

Zeng, however, received enough encouragement from Yim to spend a weekend or two drafting her vision of the mural. Because she thought it would be fun to convey a message about mathematics using her artistic talent, Zeng ultimately decided to take charge of the project.

“We want to make [students] think about what the mural means,” Zeng said. “Thinking is always good, right? We also want to show that Math Club people do more than [solve math problems] all day long.”

Yim was impressed by Zeng’s drawing and desire to take on the project. He believes that by leading the project, Zeng will learn a valuable lesson and serve as an example to future students.

“[The math mural] gives students the opportunity to organize and to lead,” Yim said. “[Zeng] was interested in [being in charge of] it, but I don’t think that she realized how much work was involved with it. I don’t think that I would ever do that as a freshman, so I’m really impressed with her so far.”

Yim noticed, however, that Zeng was doing too much of the work by herself. Since he wanted the mural process to be more of a collective effort, he suggested to Zeng that she should recruit a group of willing student volunteers.

She then created the “Toga Math Mural” group on Facebook, whose group description welcomes anyone who wants to “keep up with the progress [of the mural], provide general feedback, view the timeline of the project, sign up for days  to help out or just look at the math mural.”

The Facebook group has hosted a number of discussions and updates concerning the progress of the mural. Zeng also recently posted a link to the proposal that the students will give to principal Paul Robinson for full approval.

Once the proposal is approved, volunteers will start working on the project. Yim hopes the cost of the paints will be around $500-600, but the real cost will be in labor.

He expects student and parent volunteers will try to finish the mural before the start of winter break in December.

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