An original approach to the mathematical concept of graph from braid crafts

Abstract

In previous researches we found that a community of Argentinean artisans models its own practices of braiding using graphs. Inspired by these findings, we designed an educational activity to introduce the concept of graphs. The study of graphs helps students to develop combinatorial and systematic thinking as well as skills to model reality and abstract and generalize patterns from particular situations. The tasks proposed aim to construct the concept of graphs, then identify characteristics that allow some graphs to be models of braids and finally use them to invent more graphs for new braids. The activity performed in a secondary school teachers’ educational course, had quite satisfactory results due to the number of braids invented and the small amount of mistakes made by the participants.