Fractal Explorer Tool
Posted by Suki Husain on Thu, Nov 05, 2009 @ 03:33 PM
Here's another applet that we just created with the super smart folks at NCTM. This fractal tool is designed to encourage students to explore geometric patterns that grow and change using an iterative process. In a fractal, smaller parts resemble the larger whole.
Put this fractal tool up on your interactive white board and let your students explore how the Koch Snowflake, fractal tree, reduced square and Sierpinski triangle change as they click on the (+) and (-) buttons.
At the bottom of the stage you'll see 3 windows that show the Initial, Now, and Next stages of the fractal. Initial describes the original shape, while Now and Next refer to the process that will be used to create the fractal.
To ensure this tool works on all computers (and doesn't cause your computer to freeze or worse, crash!), the animation only goes up to a certain number of stages for each shape. However, information about additional stages is included in the table on the right (blue rows).
Take a look at the Exploration section on the Illuminations website for interesting activities to try in your classroom and have some cool fractal fun!