"Have You Seen" is a regular feature of the ISGEm Newsletter in which works related to Ethnomathematics can be reviewed. We encourage all those interested to contribute to this column.

Schniedewind, Nancy and Davidson, Ellen. Open Minds to Equality: Learning Activities to Promote Race, Sex, Class, and Age Equity, Ellen Davidson, 30 Walnut St, Somerville, MA 02143, USA, 1992, US$20.00.

This is a sourcebook that enables educators working with elementary and middle school students to help them recognize inequalities based on sex, race, age, and class and move towards changing them. The book promotes academic and interpersonal equity among students -- making a classroom a more fair and cooperative learning environment.

The benefits to all students -- minorities and whites, females and males -- of changing inequities are actively examined. Young people gain new knowledge, explore their feelings and attitudes, and better understand the life experiences of others.

Learning activities are designed sequentially as students first develop trust, communication, and cooperation. Next, they learn to recognize stereotypes, discrimination and the isms, and explore the effects of discrimination on people's lives. Using the school, community, and media as laboratories to examine examples of possible institutional discrimination, students create change, gain self-confidence, and experience collective responsibility.

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Gilmer, Gloria; Soniat-Thompson, Mary; and Zaslavsky, Claudia. Building Bridges to Mathematics: Cultural Connections. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1992.

Building Bridges to Mathematics: Cultural Connections is a collection of Multicultural Mathematics Activity Cards. The cards present situations and activities to student and then suggest projects for students to carry out in cooperative groups. The cards also give students suggestions to "Talk and Listen", "Plan and Act", and "Share Your Work". Extensions to the basic project are also provided.

Among the topics presented on the cards are: "Wampum Belts", "The Japanese Abacus", "Panpipes in the Andes", "Granville T. Woods, Inventor", "Pascal's Triangle in China" and "Art in the Southwest". Sets of cards are available to supplement mathematics instruction at various grade levels.

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Gerdes, Paulus. On Ethnomathematical Research and Symmetry, Symmetry: Culture and Science, vol. 1, no. 2, 1990, p. 154-170.

In this article Paulus Gerdus addresses three general questions:

Question 1: What is symmetry and why do symmetrical shapes appear so often in the world?

Question 2: What are some of the links between the ethnomathematical research on symmetry and other scientific and/or cultural spheres.

Question 3: Why do symmetries occur, why are they culturally valued, how can they be incorporated in the teaching of symmetry in particular and of geometry in general, and how can their mathematical potential be explored?

Each of these questions is explored with numerous examples from cultures throughout the world.

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Gerdes, Paulus, Fivefold Symmetry and (Basket) Weaving in Various Cultures, in I. Hargittai (ed.), Fivefold Symmetry, World Scientific, PO Box 128, Singapore 9128, 1992.

Although many have thought that "(fivefold) symmetry and other basic geometrical ideas arose in human culture as a blind copy of symmetry and physical form in nature", Gerdus suggests to the contrary that "regularity and symmetry of man-made objects are the result of creative human labor." To illustrate his point he discusses pentagonal-hexagonal baskets from Mozambique, pentagonal thimbles from Indonesia, semiregular pentagonal knots in handbags and shoulder bags from Mozambique, brooms from Mozambique, woven hats from Central Timor, ornamental pentagonal spiral patterns in Kenyan baskets, Chinese hats, Papago Indian baskets, and Japanese baskets.