The Klein Project is an IMU/ICMI project that began in 2008, with the aim of producing mathematics resources for secondary teachers on contemporary mathematics. It was inspired by Felix Klein’s book Elementary Mathematics from a Higher Standpoint, first published 100 years earlier. It is intended as a stimulus for mathematics teachers, so to help them to make connections between the mathematics they teach, or can be asked to teach, and the field of mathematics, while taking into account the evolution of this field over the last century.  A Design Group was established, and plans formed to produce “vignettes”. A vignette is a short, readable piece on a topic of contemporary mathematics. 

Vignettes are intended to give teachers a sense of connectedness between the mathematics of the teachers’ world and contemporary research and applications in the mathematical sciences. Thus, it will start with something with which the teacher is familiar and move towards a greater understanding of the subject through a piece of interesting mathematics. It will ultimately illustrate a key principle of mathematics. The vignette must be written in a way to complete this journey. For more information, see “What is a Klein Vignette?”

A (classical) Klein Vignette is a short piece of writing about a single mathematical topic. It assumes the reader has some undergraduate mathematical knowledge, and at least a willingness to engage with mathematical writing. Klein Vignettes are not just “about” mathematics, they contain significant mathematics which is likely to be new to most secondary teachers.

A Klein Bridging-Vignette bridges the gap between the mathematics explained in a classical vignette and its use in the classroom. We ask and want to motivate especially mathematics educators to write Bridging-Vignettes for the Klein Project

The Klein Vignettes are available in English, and many translated into Arabic, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Khmer and Mandarin.

For examples of Vignettes, take a look at the Klein Project Blog.
 

The project is managed by an international Design Team consisting of six members:

• Michèle Artigue, Université Paris Diderot, France
  
• Ferdinando Arzarello, Università degli Studi di Torino, Italy
  
• Yuriko Yamamoto Baldin, Universidade Federal de São Carlo, Brazil
  
• Samuel Bengmark, University of Gotheburg, Sweden (since 2012)
  
• William (Bill) McCallum, University of Arizona, USA
  
• Hans-Georg Weigand, Universität Würzburg, Germany
  

Former members of the international Design Team:

• Bill Barton, The University of Auckland, New Zealand (chair until 2016)
• Tomas Recio, Universidad de Cantabria, Spain (until 2016)
• Christiane Rousseau, Université de Montréal, Canada (until 2016)
• Graeme Cohen, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia (until 2014)

At its meeting in Hamburg in 2016, the Klein group changed its coordinator from Bill Barton (New Zealand) to Hans-Georg Weigand (Germany). It also decided to abandon the original task of writing a Klein Project book, and just focus on the blog and/or webpage.

If you have any questions or if you wish to contribute to this project, please contact:

Hans-Georg Weigand, University of Würzburg, weigand@mathematik.uni-wuerzburg.de.