Tessellated

When the fourth grade AG teacher told me she wanted to do a project on tessellations, I admit, I had to get a slight review to be sure I was talking about what I thought I was talking about.

tes·sel·lat·ed   /ˈtɛsəˌleɪtɪd/ Show Spelled[tes-uh-ley-tid]
adjective

1. of, pertaining to, or like a mosaic.
2. arranged in or having the appearance of a mosaic; checkered.

She wants the kids to do something on tessellations in nature. My first thought was this:


Source

What was your first thought? After that I was stuck, but slowly starting thinking of things like:

   





   

Picture Source

I still needed some other ideas so I turned to the internet. (Now I would probably turn to Twitter, but that is a post for another day! I am @nclibrarygal if you want to follow me.) I came across this site that gave me the rest of the ideas I needed. It even gave me some inspiration that I will get to in a second. Our project that we eventually settled on would be to crop in on a picture of a tessellation in nature, and have the students argue whether or not the shape is a polygon. Then on the next slide, show the whole picture along with information (and citations of course!). This was a great way to bring math, science, evaluation, and information skills together in one big bang. I don't expect it will take too long either. We are planning it for the end of February so I will post some examples of the final project when we get there.

Now, the inspiration the site gave me. You can take pictures of tessellations and submit them. Why not have students do a digital photo scavenger hunt and see what they can find on their own to submit?

What tessellations can you think of? Any other ideas on how to create a project around them?