“Everything I Need to Know About Polygons I Learned from My Pre-Kindergartner,” by Associate Professor of Mathematics Courtney Gibbons, was recently published as a “Featured Column” on the American Mathematical Society (AMS) website.
Gibbons is a regularly featured columnist on the site and usually writes about algebra. She said her “shape-obsessed child” led her out of her comfort zone to explore polygons. “This column is a journey from polygons to polyhedra to polytopes and beyond,” she wrote, noting that her son’s “obsession with polygons traces back to the first time [she] called a stop sign an octagon.”
To go with her exploration of polygons, Gibbons created a series of cartoon drawings to help explain some of the concepts in her column.
Posted December 15, 2025
