Tessellations on the web

Tessellations on the Web

I like teaching tessellations at all levels of math, and have done so from 2nd grade up through graduate level math classes. Quasiperiodic tilings (aka Penrose tilings) were even a part of my thesis. Now my interests are more in math education, but tilings still hold a deep fascination for me. For younger students it is a deep application of all four Euclidean motions, and for older students the richness provides many opportunities for analysis, problem solving and pattern creation/detection. The following resources are all ones that I have found useful in one way or another. Please don't hesitate to contact me with questions, suggested resources or any mistakes or bad links. E-mail: goldenj@gvsu.edu . Web: faculty.gvsu.edu/goldenj .

Best resource:	Suzanne Alejandre's guide
History	Arabic patterns: The Alhambra Islamic Art M. C. Escher: Official Website World of Escher (and their contest , which has lots of examples) Short Bio , with art and companion math lessons
Lessons	Elementary: Suzanne Alejandre's guide Kid's Escher Oriental Rugs , quite a nice unit with student work. Middle: Tantalizing Tessellations New Zealand Math , a nice tessellation activity High School and above: ArtLex includes some advanced examples. Glide Reflections , an Illuminations activity from the NCTM. Classification of Patterns , a neat gr 7-10 activity on the 17 wallpaper groups.
Other	Examples: Hop's tiles Commercial: Tessellations.com Online/Java: Translation tessellations David S. Chow , not the most strongly intreractive, but a large collection with some variety. Wallpaper patterns
Theory	Quick overview of the wallpaper groups Wallpaper Groups , a college math major level unit for teaching about the wallpaper groups. Includes Mathematica and Cabri files. Tessellations for Wallpaper Groups and the math by David Joyce, really a master of visual display of high level mathematics.