‘Donald in Mathmagic Land’ is a 27 minute educational cartoon released by Disney in 1959. It received an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary. It is now available on YouTube in several versions.
Join Donald as he arrives in Mathmagic Land, to be greeted by trees with “square roots”, a walking pencil playing Tic-tac-toe and a geometrical bird who quotes Pi to 15 decimal places.
Donald goes on a journey where he meets Pythagoras and his secret society, learns how mathematics is central to music, playing billiards and nature. Along the way he discovers the golden ratio and has a jam session with the Pythagoreans.
This a fun video that can be used to introduce many topics with your class.
The film concludes that scientific knowledge and technological advances are unlimited, and the key to unlocking the doors of the future is mathematics. By the end of the film, Donald understands and appreciates the value of mathematics. The film closes with a quote from Galileo: “Mathematics is the alphabet with which God has written the universe”.
