Pixar in a Box – Connecting the Dots

If you’re a math teacher, or know of one looking for real world examples of how math is used, then check out Khan Academy’s Pixar in a Box.

Pixar Animation Studios is the animation studio responsible for innovative digital animation movies like Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Monsters Inc, Cars,…and the list goes on.

Pixar teamed up with the Khan Academy to provide free lessons showing how Pixar uses math to solve real world problems in the creation of it’s movies. Each lesson includes video introducing students to a different problem Pixar’s animators experienced. It then shows how the animators used different math concepts to solve the problem and the student is given an opportunity to play with the concept through different simulations. By the end of the lesson, the animators explain how the match solved the problem and the student gains an understanding between the math and it’s application.

I can remember back in high school learning about geometry and algebra. I wasn’t very interested in math because I never understood how it could be useful. To me, it was just a bunch of numbers and symbols and steps I had to follow…until Mrs. Shattuck.  We were studying the Pythagorean Theorem and Mrs. Shattuck explained how we could determine the the school’s flagpole height by by using the Pythagorean Theorem and walked us through the process. This was a huge “A-ha” moment for me and suddenly the math made sense.  

Pixar in a Box and Khan Academy are a great example of how educators can engage students by connecting the dots between theory and real life application. When planning your next lesson, think about how you can show it’s real world application. It might make the difference between an engaged student or one just passing the time in your class.