My colleague and friend, Danyelle, has done this kite construction project for a number of years during summer school. She first saw it at a conference many years ago. We decided to try it last year during the school year and then the pandemic closed school and we didn’t get to do it. When the time came to complete the project this year, we realized all of the information Danyelle had for the project was destroyed in our black mold fiasco. We did a Google search for tetrahedral kites and realized there are many resources for similar projects out there. I’m sharing what we came up with, but you can do your own Google search and find many additional resources too.
For this project, students build a tetrahedral kite, reflecting on surface are and volume as they create it. We also added some Trig in at the end measuring the height of the kite using our clinometers. I found another resource that did the same thing. Great minds!
The day we flew our kites was super crazy windy. Some of our kites didn’t hold up as well as we would have liked and only a few were able to stay in the air. The kids had a lot of fun and we had some great discussions about kite construction and the best place to tie the string. All productive conversation with critical thinking.
Here are the resources we compiled from memory and from resources we found.
Reflection Document (This is adapted from a page I found online. Of course, I can’t find it now to link it. If I find it, I’ll give credit. SORRY!)
Don’t forget to do a Google search for Geometric Kite or Tetrahedral Kite to find many other resources. This was a lot of fun and we need fun with the year we’ve had!
Enjoy
Make Math Not Suck 