Warren Township High School
According to the NCTM Standards geometry "provides an opportunity
for students to experience the creative interplay between mathematics and
art." This project is specifically designed to allow students to demonstrate
their ability to create art using transformational geometry. Many high
school students are familiar with the work of M. C. Escher, and are very
excited to get the chance to create tessellations, especially since they
get to use computers. This lab-based unit will take approximately three
class days (our periods are 45-50 minutes) and a couple of hours outside
class for the students to complete.
At the beginning of the project students will be given a packet
including a description of the project, instructions
for creating translation, reflection
and rotation tessellations, and the rubric (this is a Word 5.1 document) which is to be used
to evaluate student work. Students should be given the three class days
to work at their own pace on the project. Prior to this unit students should
be exposed to the concepts of translation, rotation, reflection and vectors
or the project will not be successful. Having done the same unit without
the benefit of being able to use Geometer's Sketch Pad, I can say that
the technology enables the students to really focus on transformational
geometry while they are creating the tessellations. Check out some
excellent student work that my eighth hour students did. I have samples
of tessellations that were created and samples
of the written explanations that students submitted.
back to projects page.
