Off the Grid - Ed Doolittle

Two of my stops are were sparked by the same mathematics and are essentially the same stop, just at two different times. This mathematics related to Euler and the Konigsberg Bridges. For me, graph theory is by far my favourite discipline of mathematics and so, when I saw in the abstract that Edward Doolittle would be discussing the topic, one which many of my peers in this math cohort were unable to study in the math education, I was delighted. I was so delighted that I decided to google Doolittle to see what areas of math he studied and lo and behold, I saw graph theory.

But, this was not graph theory in my conventional sense. No, it was graph theory with an Indigenous context. this was extremely exciting for me as I have been struggling to see how to implement both Indigenous perspectives and graph theory into my classroom. Doolittle presents graph theory in an Indigenous context through a video lecture at BIRS, the Banff International Research Station for Mathematical Innovation and Discovery. As the video was very long, I chose to skim through it. Through this process, I discovered the Sona: Angolan Sand Drawings and how they were related to graph theory. Through this process of inquiry, I further learned how Euro-centric Mathematics is as I had never learned of the sand drawings through my coursework in Graph Theory. This has conventionally been the case for a lot of my mathematics education and I am excited to learn more about Mathematics in an indigenous context.

Other stops I had in the article related to the inefficiencies of the grid layouts for town planning. When I have conversations with my friends from Surrey and how I don't know my way around their city they will often bolster about how easy it is due to it's very grid like nature. However, through my interpretation of the reading, this is not completely natural for all people and I better understand that now.