STEAM: Art Projects

PROJECT ONE: The Four Color Theorem

The Four Colour Theorem - YouTube
  1. Did you know you can color in ANY MAP with just four colors? Read through this page from Math is Fun to learn all about it!

2. Play this Four Color Game online, can you get up to level 20? level 40? If you can take a screen shot ,take one of your high score!

3. The Four Color Game is fun online and is much easier when the game tells you if you’ve made a mistake or you can easily change your colors. But working on it in real life is trickier! If you have a printer at home, print out this color sheet and color it in with only 4 colors- Make sure none of the same colors touch at all! Four Colors Color Sheet

PROJECT TWO: Impossible Shapes

  1. Check out this Impossible Geometry info from Kiddle.

2. Watch this Learn with Diva video and follow along with her to create an impossible triangle:

3. Check out this Ladder video from Diva, see if you can do it too:

4. Look at the Prong shape below, can you figure out why it would be impossible in real life?

Try to draw it yourself and write a few sentences about why it is impossible:

PROJECT THREE: Tesselations

  1. What is a Tessellation? It’s a big word that you may have never heard of before, but you’ve definitely seen them! Check out this video on Tessellations:

2. Here is a more complex video about the Mathematical Art of Artist, MC Esher:

3. Use this online tool to create your own tessellation: Try it with a Triangle, Rectangle and Hexagon. If you can take a screen shot of your work, do it! 🙂 ONLINE TESSELLATION TOOL from Interactivate.

PROJECT FOUR: FRACTALS

  1. Fractals are amazing patterns that can be found all over the world! Check out this video from MIT about Fractal Fun:

Create the following simple fractals:

  1. Fractal Tree: 

         Start with your paper in the landscape position.   Draw a 1 inch line starting from the bottom center of the page.  Next, create a Y shape.  Now, using each of the ‘arms’ of the first Y will become the base of the next level of Ys.   Continue this process until the page is filled.   Try creating the Tree using different colors to differentiate the levels. 

2. Koch Snowflake    

 Start with an equilateral triangle with each side measuring 3 inches.   Next, divide each side into thirds.  Erase the center third of each side and use it to create additional equilateral triangles with 1 inch sides.  Continue this process until the sides are too small to keep going.  

3. Inward Pentagon  
Create a regular pentagon in the center of your page as large as you can (or use this template).  Mark the center of each side of the pentagon and connect those dots with straight lines to create a smaller pentagon on the inside of the first one (the blue one in the image below).  Repeat this process to create the green pentagon and again for the orange pentagon….  continue until you can no longer create any smaller pentagon.   Finally, choose 2 colors and color your fractal like in the photo to the left.  

SHARE YOUR WORK:

Take pictures of all of the art work you created and any screen shots and send them to Ms. Wallace (sarah.wallace@clevelandmetroschools.org) and your teacher in an email AND copy and paste the questions below and answer them in the email:

  1. What is your Name, Grade, School and Teacher?
  2. Which STEAM Art project was your favorite, why?
  3. Give an example of where tessellations are found in nature:
  4. Give an example of where fractals are found in nature:
  5. What other examples can you think of that combine Math and Art?
  6. What do you want to build next?