Tech Integration Project
Lesson Accelerator: Project Launcher

Terrifying Tessellations

Application:	Geometer's Sketchpad 4
Platform:	Mac

Description

The process for creating the example project using Geometer’s Sketchpad^® 4 is described below. The Completed Project Movie shows what the finished product might look like. The tutorial movies that follow demonstrate, step-by-step, how to construct the Terrifying Tessellations image using basic tools within the software application. Students are encouraged to explore other shapes that might tessellate. This project can be used as a way to show how Mathematics can be used in the Visual Arts, or vice versa. For a complete project description, including goals, objectives, and materials, see the Project Overview.

The Example Project

The Completed Project movie will show you what the completed example project looks like.

Completed Project Movie

			Key #	Length
1.		What the example project looks like	72652	1:14

Go to: Project Overview (Information for Teachers)

Subscribers have access to download the resource materials for this project, which includes all example files, an assessment rubric, and information about adapting and extending the example project.

Creating Your Own Project

We will begin by creating a new document in Geometer’s Sketchpad. We’ll learn how to create a segment and then a regular hexagon. By rotating the hexagonal shape, we’ll create an underlying grid of tessellated hexagons. We’ll use this grid for building the reptilian image that will form our final tessellation. We’ll create 3 interlocking reptiles of different colors. These reptiles will be translated in various directions to fill the page. We’ll then hide the underlying grid and learn how to print a copy of the final tessellated image.

A. Getting Started

		Key #	Length
1.	Saving a file	72637	1:31
2.	Setting preferences	72638	1:06
3.	Constructing a segment	72639	1:10
4.	Constructing a regular hexagon	72640	1:56
5.	Rotating the hexagon	72641	2:10
6.	Tessellating the hexagons	72642	1:39

B. Creating the Reptiles

		Key #	Length
1.	Creating the tail	72643	2:04
2.	Creating the head	72644	1:29
3.	Creating the legs	72645	0:53
4.	Constructing the yellow reptile	72646	1:02
5.	Creating the red reptile	72647	1:03
6.	Creating the blue reptile	72648	0:50