Flickr – A Free Problem Pictures

At University I was introduced to a really interesting CD called Problem Pictures. It had some fascinating images that all had some mathematical significance. I printed out about fifty and they made the walls of my classroom bright and appealing. It also had questions related to each photo, but I found that I rarely used them, preferring to create my own questions and ideas.

Enter Flickr, a great online photo sharing tool. Though you will not get questions related to each photo, the database is huge. Typing into the Flickr search engine ‘geometry’ turns up 10,810 photos at the time of writing. Most of them are really relevant; some of them are utterly spectacular. Here is a random sample:

I have found that putting an image full screen on an interactive whiteboard when students come into the room is a great way of capturing the students’ attention straight away.