Bubbles, Bees and Helping Kids SHINE

Our Term 2 SHINE Extension saw Mr Dickson working with select students from Grade 3 through to Grade 6 in Advanced Numeracy and Literacy. 

The Maths lesson began with the question “What is the connection between bubbles and bees?” Each group then explored the geometry of circles and hexagons; how the wax hexagons we know so well in honeycomb begin as circles… and then how heat and some clever bee physics shape it into hexagons. But what about bubbles? Well we created some big bubbles and saw that when they were ‘clumped’ together, they formed bubble walls of 120 degrees… just like a hexagon!

Then in our English lesson we took the geometry from the Maths lesson and explored the shapes in Flatlandia – a story of a strictly two-dimensional world where the hexagons tessellate for warmth in the frozen north, circles feast on pi, and where sea-faring octagons feed the octopuses and octopuppies. Our younger years explored narrative structure and our older students experimented with the ‘logic rules’ for plausible resolutions.

The students are always buzzing after a SHINE class with Mr Dickson... What will his Term 3 visit bee (buzz-buzz)?

Allen Dickson

Shine Extension Program