Geometry students in Mrs. Julie Petersen’s class built vocabulary words today. Polyhedrons are constructed with faces, edges and vertices. Our clay and toothpicks were a little messy, but a lot creative. In the pictures you can see tetrahedrons, pentahedrons, hexahedrons, heptahedrons and octahedrons. Most examples include two models of each polyhedron.
Inductive reasoning allows us to look at the data, find a pattern and make a generalization about that pattern. Students put their heads together to discover Euler’s Formula: V + F – E = 2. That is read “vertices plus faces minus edges equals 2”. Building was fun! Thinking was hard. It’s easier to Google a formula, but today they were responsible for their own discovery. Add these experiences together and long-term memory is the winner!
Here is our riddle for the day: “What did the bird do when he got scared? Poly he’d run!” (Get it? Polyhedron!)
