Image of the Week: The Geometry of your Environment

The Geometry of your Environment

No matter where you live, your world is full of geometric ideas. From the ways buildings are constructed, to streets and telephone poles, there are shapes, lines, and angles intersecting, overlapping, and partitioning space. We draw on this bounty in our Off You Go activities, in which we ask students to find concepts in their environment and bring them back to share and discuss with the class. This process helps sharpen students’ ideas about concepts and widen their lens for the many ways these concepts can show up in their worlds.

In this week’s image, we show just one of the endless examples of this: railroad tracks. In this Off You Go activity, designed for students learning about lines, begin by pointing out that this image shows both parallel and intersecting lines. Ask, Where do you see parallel lines? Where do you see intersecting lines? Invite students to analyze and decompose this image. If possible, annotate the picture with your students’ ideas, perhaps color coding pairs of lines that are parallel and pairs that intersect.

Then, send your students off to find other examples of parallel or intersecting lines in their environment. You might have them collect an example form home that they can bring in, or hunt around your classroom or school. If you look in your classroom, students might label these examples with a sticky note if they cannot move them, such as intersecting lines in a window frame.

In the end, collect two groups: examples of parallel lines and examples of intersecting lines. Be sure to ask: How did you know these lines were intersecting? How did you know these lines were parallel? You may uncover some misconceptions along the way. For instance, are two lines that don’t intersect always parallel?

Geometry comes alive when students connect the ideas, language, and patterns that describe space to the physical spaces they live and learn in. Get geometry off the page with an Off You Go activity with your students!

And we invite you to follow us on Twitter! Tweet us the fascinating ideas you students have about our activities or how you’re trying these activities in your space. We can’t wait to hear from you!

To multiplicity, cheers!

Jen Munson and the multiplicity lab group