The Algebra 1 Honors middle school classes began the school year with a study of fractals - mathematical and natural objects that display repeating patterns at every scale.
Among other activities, the MS students drew a Koch snowflake at various recursive stages and programmed their graphing calculators to draw a Sierpinski triangle. However, this year the most memorable activity for the girls was learning to 3-D model the three dimensional version of the Sierpinsk triangle – the Sierpinski tetrahedron - with the help of Upper School Computer Programming and 3-D Printing Club.
Why is this important?
Spatial ability is very important for STEM subjects and research shows the gender gap in spatial ability can be reduced through training (www.sciencedaily.com). In this sense, any activity that involves spatial reasoning and visualization such as this 3-D modeling project can be useful – as well as being a lot of fun.
The members of the US Club led four classes. They planned and delivered their hands-on lesson, they engaged and guided the MS students, and they ran a very successful project. In the first lesson they introduced the MS students to Tinkercad – a 3-D modeling program – and allowed them to become familiar with it, and in the second they led them to model the planned fractal.
So much more than 3D Printing!
The MS students took to the challenge like wildfire and loved 3D computer modeing; they had a great time building complex structures, collaborating, checking each other’s work and above all working with the US students. The Upper Schoolers showed tremendous leadership: they took on this project with great enthusiasm, they followed up with the Middle School math teacher, they held meetings, planned lessons and printed the objects for each MS student. And they did all of this in their own free time and without any special recognition!
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