Tessellation Art Project

• Student artists applied rigid transformations to create a tessellation - a repeating pattern that extends on forever in all directions and fits together without any gaps.
• The artists constructed a pattern template that would tessellate across the page using rotations, reflections, or translations.
• Each artist then used their creativity and imagination to add detail and color, producing an original and quality art piece.
• The Tessellation Rubric guided them in meeting the criteria of the project. They self-assessed their work using the rubric and received an assessment from Ms. Jean.

The Math Behind The Art

Unit 1 of the Illustrative Mathematics grade 8 curriculum examines rigid transformations. Rigid transformations move a figure on a plane without changing the figure's shape and size. They include rotations (turning around a point of rotation), translations (sliding a figure without any rotations), and reflections (creating a mirror image across a line of reflection). In Unit 2, students studied dilations, which are transformations (not rigid transformations) that change the size of a figure by a specific scale factor. (Note that dilations are not rigid transformations and are not used in the Tessellation Art Project.)

Family Materials IM 8.1 "Rigid Transformations and Congruence"

Family Materials IM 8.2 "Dilations, Similarity, and Introducing Slope"