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Math
In Technicolour
Math
should be colourful, hands on and fun. Here are some
teaching learning material that can make it happen. At
home, and in School.
text:
Amruta
Patil and Luke
Haokip
inputs from Rachna Chawla, Pooja Sukhpal
4
Jodo Straws
  Ten
year old Harish Karandikar’s toy rack spilleth
over. Like most boys his age, he has a daunting array of
battery operated gizmoid toys. A crate filled with
yellow, red and blue straws cuts an innocuous profile on
the shelf. It holds pride of place there.
Last summer Harish and his two friends contructed a free
standing, elaborate 5’ wide, 3’ tall, 4’ deep 3 D
superstructure for a space centre they designed.
Harish’s sister Megha, 7 years, used the Jodo straws
to make some elaborate polyhedras (though she doesn’t
know they are polyhedras) this Diwali. She covered them
with kite paper and cellophane to make customized
Akashkandils for the family home.
The Jodo Straw kit - like all other teaching-learning
material (TLM) that Jodo Gyan creates - looks
deceptively facile. The kit consists of connectors
(those small, squiggly bits whose arm can be bent to
take any direction in space) and straws of different
lengths. The straws can be joined using the connectors.
What can you do with Jodo straws?
Learn about surfaces. Create models of chemical bonds.
Build your way to understanding the elusive concept of
the Z axis. From plain vanilla 3D structures like
pyramids and cubes - to the outright exotic prisms,
icosahedra, antiprisms, dodecahedra and stellated
structures. The sky is the limit. n
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