Insights from Reading
This week I read The Six-Cornered Snowflake by Johannes Kepler. The timing of this reading couldn’t have been better as Vancouver experienced its first major snowfall of the winter. The author spends time developing their thoughts on the beauty of nature and the science behind some of the shapes we see in nature. A specific example is a snowflake. The author discusses how water vapor and the release of underground moisture play a role in the geometry of a snowflake. Other examples including beehives and pomegranates are analyzed from geometrical perspective. The shapes of these objects are looked at regarding how combining the shapes (rhombic) with different sides connect to build a whole. The author continues to share their thinking about shapes by thinking of a cubic arrangement and how with pressure a sphere become a cube shape.
My first stop while reading this article was thinking about the objects the author deicide to analyze, being snowflake, pomegranate, and a beehive. This led me to thinking how exploring different shapes with students can connect them to place. For example, if it never snows where students live it might not be the most meaningful learning to look at. However, if students can visit a school garden or orchard and see the shapes occurring in flowers or apples this knowledge can be made visible.
My second stop was connecting the knowledge that I was learning through the authors descriptions to a trip I had been on. When I was reading about the hexagonal shape of the beehive maximizes space, a memory of visiting various basalt columns in Iceland popped into my mind. When viewing them last spring break I did not think about how the shape of the columns fits together perfectly to make it a whole. However, now after reading this article I am further building my understanding as to why they look the way they do!
Thoughts on Introduction and Videos
I really appreciated the introduction this week and the connection to use multisensory mathematics to help diverse learners find success. This term I am taking EPSE 526 with the topic being Learning Disabilities. I am very passionate about developing my practice as classroom teacher to include ways of reaching all students. Involving students in hands on learning experiences and allowing them to show their thinking in multiple ways helps build community within the classroom as all learners are given the opportunity to succeed. Reading about students with sensory impairments made me make a connection to a beautiful picture book titled 10 Ways to Hear Snow by Cathy Camper. The author tells the story of a snowfall happening in a town and a young girl thinking about the sounds one hears when a city has a snowfall. The girl thinks of the sounds snow makes to help her grandmother understand that there was a snowfall as she cannot see.
The videos were interesting. I never thought of all the detail and mathematics involved in simply eating Halloween candy or cutting a bagel. The videos did serve as a good reminder to me as I have yet to integrate mathematics through the sense of taste into my class. This led me to thinking about the possibilities to think about the math students experience when they receive hot lunch. Such as looking at the amount of pepperoni pieces they get on their pizza or pineapple or even thinking about the different pizza selected. The class could look at a question like what is the most common pizza choice?
Activities and Connections to Practice
With the snowfall this week I took some time to experience looking at the detail of many snowflakes. I also explored snowflakes with my students. We started out by watching a video about the science and learning that a true snowflake has 6 points. As they are in Grade 2 this was a good starting point to start to look at shapes in more depth. Students then built snowflakes with loose parts and by creating oil pastel and watercolour paintings. When doing art, I said that the criteria would be designing a snowflake that has 6 points. I found this to be a meaningful experience for leaners to use different modes to understand the science of a snowflake.
I decided to apply what I learned in my reading last week with my students also. As I read the article about being the graph, I decided to introduce the idea of graphing with students acting out the data. For example, we focused on the question “do you want it to snow tonight”. Students then moved to an area of the classroom assigned to the response yes and a separate area for the answer no. After counting and recording the data students moved to their table spots to complete a bar graph with the collected data.
Amanda, your snowflake exploration looks and sounds great. Do you mind sharing the video you used? Cheers.
ReplyDeleteThank you, this is the video I used - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M48RfaWcWA. I slowed the speed down as she is a quick speaker!
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of creating their snowflakes with loose parts. It looks like your students had some pretty interesting creations. Also, great picture of the basalt columns in Iceland. The hexagon is such a great shape, and can be seen in many different parts of nature. Here is a video that I shared in another course on the hexagon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thOifuHs6eY&ab_channel=CGPGrey
ReplyDeleteHey Amanda,
ReplyDeleteGreat to see you have already tested out learnings from both weeks with your students. I appreciate your first stop about how shapes should connect students to place. I think I would extend it to both natural and human made shapes and place. As you summarized Kepler focused on natural beauty and the environmental or physical science behind the shapes. The human made shapes and places could further extend to other sciences. Students could maybe do a comparison between one or the other and perhaps make connections to other shapes or places like your basalt towers.