Marshall Islander’s Charts for navigating

 By reading this article, I could learn how mathematical ideas were integrated in the view of maps and mapping. One of the interesting parts was that there are two types of Marshall Island stick charts. Meddo and rebbelith are the first type which show significant features of the environment. The second type is called mattang which is more abstract that models the dynamic geometry. Mattang was used in the training of navigators. It contained idealized shapes and forms that could explicate the principles of swell and land interaction. 

I think embodied mathematics is significant in the history of mathematics as people could learn from their environment and their geometric aspects of the phenomena. In this article, the natural phenomena were oceanographic. The system was a conceptualization of the interplay of land, sea, and wind which led relative positions and directions to be important and the system could give arise to geometric implications. 

 

One of the possible roles or forms of embodied mathematics in secondary mathematics teaching and learning can be student’s experimental in math. For example, students can create their own data and then find relationship and graph it rather than using a given data. By doing this I believe students can understand the relationship better and be more motivated in their learning.