Mathematics in Nature - Cézanne

Many years ago, during my time as a middle-school teacher, my class studied a particular aspect of the French artist Cézanne's work: "Treat nature as cylinders, spheres, and cones."

I wish I had the work to share now.  Beautiful, creative scenes were hand-drawn - the only proviso, that only spheres, cones, and cylinders could be drawn.  Initially quite a challenge, through sharing ideas the students rose to the challenge.  From lamp post streets to flying robots - it made an epic display!

Where's the maths?  Provide the students with the formulae to calculate the volume of the shapes!  Quite a challenge for Year 7 students?  Yes but achieveable. We replaced pi with 3 and made good use of the calculators!  Try it some time.

Volume of this scene?

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