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Seventh grade students in my gifted math class learned how to make Escher-style tessellations. Their tessellation art was the culminating project in a unit based on "geometric transformations":
rotation (turning),
reflection (flipping),
and translation (sliding). I first learned about making tessellations at the NCTM National Conference in Seattle, Washington in 1993. As for tutorials to do the rotation and reflection tessellations, I use the Tesselmania computer program.
KLASSY KATS
by Samantha W
ELEPHANT STAMPEDE by Julissa V
TWIRLING TULIPS by Keiley R
O WHERE O WHERE IS MY HAIRby Kasey W
Click on any Polaroid™ to see a large version of it, with a description that's unintentionally sometimes true.
Ms. Mitchell's student geometristicalitious (Is that a word?) mad scientists made their own tessellation pattern pieces by cutting notecards.
In the tessellation business, we call "tessellation pattern pieces" by another name, "tiles". "Tiles" reminds us that many of the first tessellations, long ago, were made from ceramic wall, ceiling,
and floor tiles.
The Coosa Mad Geometrists made one of each type of tessellation:
rotation (turning),
reflection (flipping),
and translation (sliding).
Ms. Mitchell, the Geometry Teacher and Part Time Lion Tamer, pointed to the work of Escher for inspiration, students were encouraged to give their designs a creative look. Each student tessellationisticousiousnessist (I'm sure that's a word...right?) chose their best design to recreate on posters which are now displayed on the ceiling tiles of the Suzette Mitchell Memorial Gifted Math Classroom and Wild Animal Refuge™, next to the burn marks from our unfortunate 2011 experiment with Britney Spears, supercooled semiconductor physics, cola, and Mentos™ candies.
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