Math Art: Smashing Cones

Published by patrick honner on

The other day in class during an exploration into solid geometry, we discovered we could make these lovely flowers

Paper Flower

by smashing the paper cones we had made.

Paper Cone -- Side

Now, if  I can just figure out how to test the students on this material.

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patrick honner

Math teacher in Brooklyn, New York

2 Comments

colintgraham · March 31, 2011 at 12:30 am

You really are an evil maths teacher if you want to test your students on this… now what would I do? [mwhahahaha]

I LOVE maths and paper-engineering… especially squashing and throwing things after you’ve made them.

If you were really evil, you could ask the students what would be required to replicate the ‘rose’ exactly…

But you’re not really evil, are you?
😉
Colin

MrHonner · March 31, 2011 at 7:12 am

I’ve never really folded before, but now I’m doing it all the time. I’ve read before, and believe myself, that working with your hands can boost your creativity; for me, folding is not just a fun way to explore mathematical ideas, but it’s also like a little intellectual vacation.

And I’d probably just ask the kids to trisect an angle by folding. I’m not that evil.

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