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Teaching subjects such as Maths, Geography, History or Science to students through a foreign language is a motivating and an encouraging experience. Providing the interest and individual hability, this type of work keeps the students on freedom of thoughts and action while doing the task. The colaboration and creativity emerges as a natural and desirable result of the spent effort.

The three groups of students involved wished to express their views and feelings about the content of this activity.

“The English Teacher asked us to do an activity about a Mathematic subject: “The Platonic Solids”.

The Platonic Solids are regular polyhedra and there are five of them: the tetrahedron, the cube, the octahedron, the dodecahedron and the icosahedron.

These solids were studied by Plato in ancient Greece, who also identified them with natural phenomena like: fire (tetrahedron), earth (cube), air (octahedron), the universe (dodecahedron) and water (icosahedron).

These special solids have dual ones, as they are associated in pairs, which are other partner-solids. The representation of this duality is obtained by joining the vertices of each one with the centre of the faces of another. This works in pairs: the tetrahedron with the tetrahedron, the cube with the octahedron and the dodecahedron with the icosahedron.”

Inês Cruz, nº 10

Joana Almeida, nº 11

Mariana Santos, nº 17

6º F

“We did a work about the Platonic Solids.

There are a great number of different types of Polyhedra (solids with flat faces),but the Platonic Solids, which are regular and convex, have some very interesting features.

Plato, a phylosopher and a mathematician, who was born in Athens probably in 428-427 b.C., studied this class of regular polyhedra, which got his name.

The five Platonic Solids are polyhedra whose faces have the shape of polygons (all faces are regular) and their angles are congruent (same size). Their names are tetrahedron (4 faces), cube (6 faces), octahedron (8 faces), dodecahedron (12 faces) and icosahedron (20 faces).

In fact, if we try to build regular polyhedral solids, we can verify that it is not possible to have them with polygons that own more than six edges. Otherwise the sum of the angles around the vertices would be higher than 360º, making the resulting surface to be flat.”

Nuno Miguel, nº. 19

João Martins, nº.12

6º F

“We liked and learned a lot from doing this activity. Although a bit difficult, it was very interesting and funny.

In this work we presented information about Plato, the five Platonic solids, their duals and some other curiosities. These solids are so important because they have unique characteristics.

If you want to learn more about the Platonic Solids, just visit the school library of Ribamar.”

Leonor Martins, nº 13

 Mariana Fernandes, nº 18

6º F  

Teacher: Cristina Camoêsas