Math Mondays: Fractal Fun for Time-Fillers
This week, my students made some discoveries about fractals. Fractals are a never-ending pattern. Fractal numbers repeat a pattern and never end. It could be 3.33333 or ... 5.162162162 or ... 242424242424 or...
Fractals occur throughout nature. To introduce students to fractals, we began with a series of examples of fractals in nature such as those in the pictures below:
You might also share pine cones, which if you collect at the right time of year can provide a hands-on exploration.
and the Pythagorean Fractal.

I challenged the students to explore the algorithms used to create their designs or the other ones, such as Sierpinski's triangle . For a complete guide and lesson with student handouts, you might like the Art of Fractals. Enjoy!
Math Mondays is a bi-weekly blog post (2nd and 4th Monday of each month) sharing tips, ideas, resources, and products for teaching math. If you have questions or think there is something I should include, you can leave me a message in the comments section below or at the store in the question and answer section.
Tags:
art and math
Math Mondays
2 comments
Very interesting connections here! Love the differentiation used to allow students to make up their own or create an existing fractal.
ReplyDeleteA great way to engage students - and you are right; math and art are a natural pair!
ReplyDeleteNote: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.