Review: MathArt by NatureGlo's eScience

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My son was very excited when he watch the trailer for NatureGlo’s eScience MathArt courses. The idea of combining math with art, science, history and more was very appealing to him. The MathArt Online 4-class bundle is proving to be just the ticket for him.

Gloria Brooks developed these classes with the idea of encouraging students to ask questions. As such she doesn’t say you have to do this, and then this, and then that. But rather sets out the teaching aspect and then encourages her students to follow up with what they want to learn more about. There is a lot of freedom in her classes and she builds the learning up one step at a time.

What course did we take?

My son has been busy learning about Fibonacci and the golden ratio. How it can be found everywhere in the world. He’s been enjoying this mostly on-line program with PDF’s.

This course includes

#1: Introduction & History of the Golden Ratio and the Fibonacci Numbers
#2: The Golden Number & Fibonacci in Art, Architecture & Nature
#3: The Fibonacci Numbers in Nature
#4: The History & the Golden Ratio of the Great Pyramid
#5: Phi & Quasicrystals
#6: The Mathematics of Music

How did we use this?

My original goal, based on watching the overview and the free sample, was to have my lad do two lessons per week. We downgraded my expectations to one lesson a week, once we truly understood Gloria’s methodology. We chose to spread out the workload thereby allowing my lad to really dig into the parts that he was most interested in. It was great to be able to slow down and research terms we were unfamiliar with. To break down the lesson into the bite sized pieces that my lad so enjoys. It’s been so interesting watching him learn and what has peaked his curiousity.

The first lesson, my son required a fair bit of hand-holding as he figured out how the program worked and that it was okay to stop and just research unfamiliar terms. It was a hard lesson for us, but we learned a lot! We actually emailed Gloria and told her what we were struggling, and then had the joy of seeing how responsive Gloria was to questions from her students. She reworked the first lesson plan just to help my lad better understand some terminology. Isn’t it wonderful when a creator is able to do that?

Our Basic Routine went as follows:

Mondays my son would watch the video or read through the slides.

The slides were basically the video without the audio component where she would read the slide and basically talk her way through them. As you can see, the slides are very clear.

Tuesday and Wednesday

He would read through project possibilities and start to work on them. Either by doing some research, watching videos and/or printing off materials needed and working through them.

The student is able to pick from a variety of options for their project. They can either choose to do a big project where they do a little bit every week, OR they can choose to do a smaller project every week. My son chose the options of working on something smaller every lesson.

One of the projects my son chose to do was making this tool to demonstrate the measuring for the Golden Ratio.

Thursday quizzes

My son made me laugh. We discovered the quizlets…and he sits beside me excitedly telling me that he beat his last score! “Mom, do you think I can get down to 10 seconds?” As you can see from the picture below they have different quizlets: Match, Learn, Test, Flashcards and Spell. Each of these quizzes teaches or tests the material the student needs to know for the lesson test.

I love having all the PDF’s, being able to download them and save it all the computer. Being able to print off JUST the pages that I want. My son enjoyed being able to print off the tests as well as being able to do them online. He didn’t like that the online tests would mark the answer as wrong if you capitalized the word rather than leave it as lowercase.

On the otherhand, he loved it, if he got an answer wrong, that it would tell him what the correct answer was.

I found that the PDF’s were very thorough. From the student workbook delineating projects for the class, to the study guide that goes through the powerpoint presentation, and lesson quiz (along with the answers), Gloria covers all the bases that she can.

Tip One:

When looking for the course you want and you can’t see it, click the “all courses” button. 🙂 For me, since I also have the free class listed as one of my courses, the all courses button screen looks like this:

Each class (Math Connections with the Real World, MathArt in Ancient Cultures, Mathematics in the Arts & Sciences, MathArt – Patterns in Nature) is six weeks long, my son is thinking he’ll work through the ancient cultures one next.

Tip Two:

Make sure you utilize the side panel. Makes working your way through the course a whole lot easier. As you complete each lesson and mark it off, the colour fades and gets crossed out. This does not mean you cannot refer back to lessons. Each link remains active.

Benefits:

NatureGlo’s eScience program is something a whole family can do together (at least the students 10 and up). One price for the whole family. It can be used by Christian and non-Christian families equally as origins are not discussed. It’s interactive, and self-paced. You can see where you are in the course and go back and forth as many times as you need to. You get a slideshow with PDF downloads showing those slides one page at a time, as well as great study guides and workbooks to help you work through the material. It all builds upon each other. Gloria is very responsive to inquiries which is completely wonderful. Content is provided for students who want to work beyond what is presented. Students can approach this course in a manner that best suits them.

My Thoughts:

It’s organized in a way that my son can mostly work through the material on his own. He tends to call me in when he’s working through a test, or trying to confirm just what a project is calling for. I loved that his first journal project included a topic he loves… he found the Fibonacci sequence in spiders! He was so delighted. 🙂

Quotes from My Lad:

“Natureglo, so far I like it. I like that I can either watch the video or I can just go through the slide show pictures on my own. Sometimes I like to listen and other times I like to just read.”

“One of the things I would have liked. With the slide show videos, because she did them live, it would be nice if she could edit out where the students are circling things.”

“I really like that it gives me a choice as to what project I can do.”

“I plan to work my way through all these courses Mom, I really like them. Make sure you tell them that!”

NatureGlo's eScience.
MathArt Online 4-Class Bundle.
Gloria Brooks
Class length vary.
Four Bundle unit of online combination math, 
science, art classes
Pricing: See here.
For PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android platforms.
One year subscription.
Ages 10+