Students' lack of understanding about the relationships between geometry in two and three dimensions led the author to a surprising source of inspiration--the ancient philosopher and geometer Plato. From a theoretical perspective, the author's approach embodies the four instructional strategies that Eggen and Kauchak (2001) suggest for engaging…

This article discusses how paper folding can be used in the classroom to introduce the standard results of school geometry, such as the transversal and parallel lines results, along with results concerning angles in convex polygons and centres of triangles, for example. Angle bisectors, midpoints, perpendiculars are all straightforward…

Describes an activity in which students develop a conceptual understanding of the formulas of the circumference and area of a circle by exploring pi. (YDS)

Presents an activity in which students investigate geometric probability at a school fair. (YDS)

Uses the Paper Balloon origami form to help students discover the relationship between ratios of corresponding distance, area, and volume measures in similar solids. (YDS)

Presents an activity in which students explore properties of quadrilaterals using geoboards. (YDS)

Describes the processes used by middle school students to expand their thinking about the formula for the area of a parallelogram by observing patterns in the operation of a flexible parallelogram. (YDS)

Presents student solutions to a problem using different strategies that focus on kitchen geometry. (YDS)

Presents a measurement problem that can be explored by students of varying ability. Discusses aspects that make it accessible in a heterogeneous class. (YDS)

Explains the basics of spherical geometry and describes a series of activities developed for grade 6 middle school students. (YDS)

Shows how students explored geometric properties of the South Korean flag using proportional reasoning. (YDS)

Explains using different historical methods to create magic squares. (Contains 10 references.) (YDS)

Presents a class project for creating a time line depicting the history of geometry that includes writing short biographies of mathematicians and summarizing geometric ideas to form an historical perspective. (ASK)

This article describes a joint effort between a mathematics educator and a middle school art teacher who wanted their students to experience first hand how construction works in the real world. It starts with students designing and building scale models for a large inflatable item in which they display their art and extends to building the…

Uses concrete models to teach conventional algebraic topics with emphasis on connections to other mathematical concepts such as notion of variable, number properties, and geometry. (Contains 10 references.) (YDS)