Wednesday, February 4, 2009

In The Beginning...

It all started with an idea...



1 comment:

  1. Project: Stars in their Eyes, Math on Their Minds

    First, we want to acknowledge the generosity of Tom Wardell, a former Senior High graduate, for his donation of $1000 to the Education Foundation for the construction of this project. All intellectual and manual labor is being done by Craig Beals's Earth Science classes and Jenny Combs's Geometry class.

    Our classes will ultimately construct a large cardboard geodesic dome to be used for planetarium. Our final dome should be 16.4 feet in diameter and reach a height of about 8.2 feet (the radius).

    Students first did some investigation on what it meant for a structure to be considered 'geodesic.'

    Next, the geometry students (managers of the project) needed to build scale models of our dome to anticipate, practice and learn what would be involved for our final project. Using a scale of 1 in = 1 ft, student figured out how many pentagons and hexagons were in the design. These totals gave them their total of triangles. Students also needed to account for the different sizes of isoscles triangles needed for the dome.

    Student learned how to construct triangles with exact measurements, experimented with connecting tabs, and managed their constructions with varying levels of success.

    Students will keep a blog of their experiences as we work.

    Please contact Craig Beals or Jenny Combs with any questions, comments or suggestions you may have as we progress.

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