jennifer.jasensky.com

Students will make decisions about the aesthetics of patterns based on their own criteria
Students will discover trends in aesthetics and their connections to mathematical pattern types.

Prerequisite Knowledge:

Students will need no previous background knowledge.

Materials Needed:

Some sort of Internet enabled computer projector, so you will be able to show students color pictures from this website
Class set of Survey Worksheets
Transparencies 1.1 and 1.2

The Lesson:

Before class begins, make sure that your computer projector is ready to go, open up your Internet browser, and go to http://jennifer.jasensky.com/lesson_materials/pattern/index.html. This page has the pictures that go along with the Survey Worksheet. When you are ready to begin, pass out a Survey Worksheet to each student in the class. Read the directions aloud to the students. Then instruct students that they will first be viewing all of the designs, and that they should make any notes they need to in the Notes section of their worksheet. Give them ideas of the sorts of notes which might help them clarify their thinking as they view the pictures (such as “Picture C looks like a spiraling pattern” or “Picture L has 2 different shapes repeated, white hexagons and black and green bat-like shapes). Then slowly click through the 20 pictures (if you scroll down, you can see the letter of the picture). At any time, you can click on the house icon to go back to the main screen with the 20 pictures shown. Before you go through the pictures again, let students know that they must figure out which are their favorite pictures by labeling 1-5 on their worksheet. Reiterate the instructions for the students, so they don't misnumber.

When they are finished voting, use transparency 1.1 and have students give you their top 5 picks. Just list them in the votes column, then when you have gotten the top five picks from each student, add up the totals, and use transparency 1.2 (the survey worksheet transparency) to show students how to fill out their class' total information. See the samples for information on how to fill in the transparencies and worksheets. To fill in the column for pattern type, use the following key.

A-p1 B-pg C-p3 D-p6 E-pm F-cm G-cm H-pmm I-pmm J-pmg

K-cmm L-cmm M-cmm N-p4m O-p4m P-p4g Q-p4g R-p6m S-p6m T-p6m

Then point out to students which pictures are from the same pattern type:

F and G
H and I
K, L, and M
N and O
P and Q
R, S, and T

Now try to have the students analyze a possible connection between aesthetics and similarly classified patterns. Your class may or may not find trends in the types of favorite pictures chosen. Have a discussion for the remainder of the class period about the following types of questions:

1. What were the favorite pictures from our class? Why do you think your classmates liked those the best?

2. Was there a specific pattern type that was chosen most often (more often)? Why do you think your classmates like that pattern (those patterns)?

3. Do you think that if we did the same project with your parents, would we get similar results? How about for your grandparents/younger siblings?

4. Think about the colors used in the patterns. Do you feel that color had an influence on whether or not you liked a pattern?

5. Do you think patterns that were not well liked would have been more popular if other colors had been used?

6. Would it have made a difference if the patterns had only black lines and white spaces (no color at all)? Which pattern would have been your favorite if there were no colors involved at all? What preferences would come into play if color was not a factor? (Maybe some students would prefer designs with clean simple lines, maybe some would prefer the more complicated lines)

7. If there was no clearly identified favorite pattern among the class, ask the students to explore reasons why preferences in beauty can be different. Talk about the validity of having different preferences and maybe how that factors into the type of society we have.