Get Outdoors to Teach Angles!

This was one of the last things I did with students last school year. I had them build an angletron which is basically a piece of paper that you have folded into an certain angle so that you don’t have to carry around a protractor. We folded them to the size of the Golden Angle and then went to find Golden Angles in nature outside. In case you don’t know the Golden Angle is 137.5 degrees. This is what makes nature look natural. It is everywhere in nature! This makes for a treasure hunt for kids. Here you can see it matches up perfectly to the veins of an oak tree leaf. I also found a Golden Angle in the way the blades grew in a tall piece of “nut grass” as my mom calls it.

To make this angletron I just folded a piece of paper in half=180 degrees, then folded it again in half to equal 90 degrees. I was then able to fold each bottom side of the 180 degree angle up to meet the center 90 degree crease. This allowed me to count, 45, 45, 45 to get to 135 degrees. This is pretty close to 137, so I just estimated a couple of more degrees to make my angletron. It doesn’t matter that the outside edges aren’t perfect as long as the inside corner is the right number of degrees to measure your angles.

You can GO HERE for a video version of making angletrons.

A fun question to ask students is if the Golden Angle is 137.5 degrees how many degrees are left over in a circle (360 degrees)? The answer is 222.5. Hmmm? Interesting! There is so much to explore with the Golden Angle and Fibonacci sequences in nature! Happy Hunting!