Examples of Student Learning Students build shapes with toothpicks and 1 cm clay balls. They make geopanes by hanging the shapes on thread and dipping them into a mixture of water and soap. Beforehand, students predict what they think will happen and describe what does happen. This illustration of surface tension encourages discovery of the relationship of vertices, edges, and faces of 3-dimensional figures and an understanding of Euler's theorem.
Students build a scale model of their school.
They sketch elevations of the school building, estimate and measure the dimensions of the sides, determine the most cost-effective materials for construction of the model, and write a presentation describing their model. The model is displayed and the presentation is delivered to school and local communities. They write about what they observe and why they believe it is that way. Examples of Student Learning Monuments found in Massachusetts provide the basis for exploration of indirect measurement and geometric constructions. At home, students peruse collections of post cards and photographs to find those with shadows cast by tourists and monuments.