This class gave me a lot of new perspective on the math world. I knew some of the basics of math history, for example, the Arabs created the number system we use today, but the class dove further into history than I previously knew. It helped me develop more knowledge around math so that when I am teaching in my own classroom, I can help students learn where certain topics come from. It let me learn all about different cultures as well because some mathematics surfaced because of other things happening in the world.
The artifact below is one of the two quantitative reasoning projects we had. Groups had to calculate the qibla, the direction to Mecca from a point, for any city in Spain to go through the mathematics that went through for every mosque. The Muslims had to do these calculations so that the mosques were facing Mecca so that they could face that way to pray. Doing this gave a great appreciation for this process and other processes that were very lengthy and precise without all the technology we have today.