Miller GT
Awesome Origami Edition!
Origami is the art of folding paper. However, there is a whole lot more to it as our students have discovered! They began the unit by learning about the math aspects of origami. While creating a shape that ended up being a whale, students discovered the variety of triangles and quadrilaterals that were created in the folding. Their next step was to learn about Platonic and Archimedean solids. After that, they chose partners and were introduced to the main project details. With this, they had to choose a topic and create a themed display that incorporated at lease six pieces of completed origami from each group member.
Continuing with their origami unit, the students chose a particular theme and tackled the task of creating a minimum of six original pieces of origami to be used in it. Besides their individual pieces of origami, they worked with one or two others. Once completed, the students had to create a display for their pieces and install them to tell a story. Students needed to use problem solving skills, as well as a variety of mathematical applications such as measurement and estimation, to create symmetrical, geometric shapes from a piece of paper.
Now that the students were comfortable with origami, they moved on to modular or unit origami. This type of origami is a paper-folding technique which uses two or more sheets of paper to create a larger and more complex structure than would be possible using single-piece origami techniques. Each individual sheet of paper is folded into a module, or unit, and then modules are assembled into an integrated flat shape or three-dimensional structure by inserting flaps into pockets created by the folding process. These insertions create tension or friction that holds the model together. Students learned how to fold a Sonobe unit and then chose three pieces to make. Though some found this difficult, in the end, they, and we, were all proud of the work they accomplished!
