Murals help liven wall, create interest in math

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By ELIZABETH HOCHSTEDLER elizabeth.hochstedler@lee.net
Friday, March 14, 2008 9:53 PM CDT

Math isn’t just being taught in the classrooms at Chippewa Falls Senior High School, it’s all over the walls.

Along the walls of the math wing appear nine murals, all related to math.

Math teacher Mike Nerbovig decided the walls in the wing, which were painted white when the wing was created, were boring.

“You just kind of get tired of the white walls,” he said. “You have to find an outlet ... to make it more interesting for yourself, the other teachers and the students.”

So he decided to do something about it. He talked to administrators at the school and got the OK for his mural idea.

With the help of other teachers and students, Nerbovig has been creating the murals since November.

The designs were chosen as they all reflect concepts studied in Chi-Hi classes.

They include a lizard tessellation, a cryptology ribbon, a Mandelbrot Set, Sierpinski’s Triangle, a mathematical snowflake, a Navajo rug, a dragon face, a Pythagorean quilt and a graphing calculator. Nerbovig is also planning a depiction of a space portal soon.

The murals were created not only to decorate the walls, but to teach students about math.

“The whole purpose to do this is to generate interest in mathematics,” Nerbovig said.

And so far it’s working.

Nerbovig said his students have especially become interested in the cryptology ribbon. The ribbon symbolizes a technique of encoded messages used by the Spartans 2500 years ago. Notes were written on ribbons wrapped around dowels. When the ribbon was unraveled, the message couldn’t be deciphered.

Nerbovig painted one of these ribbons on the walls and planned to use it as a challenge for his students to decipher the message and figure out which letters were missing. However, before he even asked the students to complete the assignment, they were coming up to him with the answer.

Other students often glance at the murals as they walk through the hallways, and Nerbovig said he’s heard a lot of good things about them.

Students have also volunteered to help create the paintings.

Nerbovig said much of the work has been done by himself and Marcus Culbert, a Chi-Hi student. Culbert has volunteered to stay after school and to come in on weekends to finish the murals.

“He’s actually been the person who’s helped me most of all,” Nerbovig said.

Students and teachers have been anxious for each design to be completed and anticipate each new mural.

To create the murals, Nerbovig makes copies of the designs, blows them up on a transparency machine, traces them on the wall with pencil, and then paints them the appropriate colors.

He said the murals are more than just artwork, they’re a representation of the work completed in the classroom.

“I wanted to liven up the hallways, but I also wanted to convey what we’re doing in the classroom,” he said.

The murals, he said, were created so teachers, students and visitors could all enjoy them.