Beau Janzen:  Homeschool Conference Speaker and Workshop Leader Details

Why Do We Need Math?
As someone who went through most of his schooling feeling indifference and frustration towards math, I want to share some ideas as to why I devote so much of my career to math education.

I want to examine the true nature of mathematical thinking and show how it runs diametrically opposed to much of the conventional wisdom in math education.  One can’t start to build on their knowledge of math without first asking those foundational questions:  Why do I have to learn this?  When will I ever use this?  How does this relate to me personally?

Math and Visual Effects – How Numbers are a Creative Tool
All too often, students can feel a disconnect with their math curriculum. It may be obvious why math is necessary for accountants or engineers, but what about creative artists? And how can math help us with our understanding of the day to day world around us?

As someone who creates digital visual effects for movies, I use math as the medium for my artwork. With examples of my work from movies including X-Men, Speed Racer, and other films, I want to show how math is not only a creative tool needed to create virtual worlds, but is also essential to create and understand anything in the “real world” as well.

This talk is intended to help inspire homeschool learners and parents to see math in a new, creative, and practical light. This proposed presentation will be taken from a presentation I’ve made to junior high schools and high schools in the U.S and Germany. The talk is appropriate for a wide age range audience since the topics dealt with are more conceptual than technical and require only very rudimentary arithmetic to understand.