HHS Librarian Keeps Busy
When Huntington High School math teacher Lynn Hendricks decided to assign a Platonic solid project for her accelerated geometry class, she knew just who to speak with to make sure everything was in place for students.
Huntington librarian Patricia Dillon is a little bit of an expert on just about everything. She's always reading and researching and adding to her already extensive base of knowledge. She works closely teachers who want students to utilize the library's resources for class assignments and projects.
After covering a unit on solid geometry, where students delved deeper into the third dimension by studying general solids (prism, cylinder, cone, pyramid and sphere), Ms. Hendricks had her accelerated class continue with a Platonic solid project, which was designed to cross curriculums.
"In Euclidean geometry, a Platonic solid is a regular, convex polyhedron," according to Wikipedia. "The faces are congruent, regular polygons, with the same number of faces meeting at each vertex. There are five Platonic solids; their names are derived from their numbers of faces."
The Huntington mathematicians were required to write a two-page research paper, including "some history of the Platonic solids, their symbolic representations and unique properties, as well as connections seen in math, science, art and media."
The students were also required to create the five platonic solids using nets. Here they were asked to demonstrate their creativity and connections. "Each group must also provide pictures and diagrams relevant to their research," according to Ms. Hendricks. "We use these along with the models to create a class poster board."
Mrs. Dillon can now add Euclidean geometry to the list of her specialities.