Photo Opportunity: Using Photography to Teach Math
Math is what makes photography work; therefore it makes perfect sense to incorporate it into your homeschool lessons. It can be used as a object lesson for different math concepts and formulas, as well as a tool to make learning math a little more interesting, especially for visual learners.
Photography can be used as a tool for teaching math at every grade level. For example, you can use photographs to help a younger child identify patterns in nature. Patterns are the basis of math, and being able to identify them and photograph them is a skill that your child can build upon.
Photography can also be used to identify shapes in nature and introduce basic concepts in geometry and symmetry. A fun project to do is to go out “into the field” and take photographs that can then be used to make or illustrate word problems. For geometry, it is fun to take photos of buildings and use them to practice measuring area or volume.
The camera itself uses math to calculate focal length, shutter speeds, aperture, and exposure times, which illustrate the concepts of fractions and inverse square law.
Digital photography with its use of megapixels can help teach concepts such as the Cartesian plane and how the position of each pixel can be expressed as x and y coordinates.
There is something in nearly every academic area that relates to photography, and as a result there’s a plethora of ideas you can use to enhance your homeschool with photography. We’ve barely scratched the surface here! My goal is to help motivate you as the teachers, because the more motivated we are, the more engaged our children will be.
Digital photography provides you with a fantastic opportunity to get creative in your homeschool and to personalize your child’s learning even more. Take advantage of that opportunity and share the blessing of learning and growing with your child!
Don’t forget to check out our post on recommended resources for books to help springboard your use of photography in the classroom.
Lupe Tucker and her husband, Curtis, homeschool their five children in Florida. Former classroom teachers, they publish www.HomeschoolingFlorida.com and www.Homeschool-Evaluations.com, a portfolio review & standardized testing service. They conduct academic workshops across the country with the nonprofit organization www.KidsAboardWorkshops.org. A lifelong photographer, Lupe is always on the lookout for the perfect shot and is hopelessly addicted to photo books.
