Chemistry students build a crystal using a ball and stick model kit or styrofoam balls and toothpicks. Results of steps 8 and 9 are displayed side by side within school as examples of applied fractal structure in the world. Chemistry students look a samples or pictures of crystals and compare the actual shape of the crystals with the crystal structures. Have models or pictures of the crystal structure for these materials. Small metal filings on a piece of paper or cardboard with a magnet underneath forms fractal images.
Students can create a mural with the images.
Fractals can be used to model totally symmetric structures such as crystals as well as nonsymmetric or random structures such as coastlines or mountain ranges. Fractal geometry has become a powerful new tool in mathematics in describing a wide variety of complex natural phenomena. Drawing materials to unify Chemistry books with images of fractal based structures Vocabulary Fractal Asymmetry Unity Bibliography and Resources Fractals, from Encyclopedia of Physics, second edition, Rita G. Lerner and George L. Trigg eds.