Explore bending of light between two media with different indices of refraction. See how changing from air to water to glass changes the bending angle. Play with prisms of different shapes and make rainbows.

This lesson helps students develop spatial visualization skills and geometric understanding by exploring the different nets that can be folded into a cube. The lesson is placed in the context of a young woman who is trying to build a jewelry box. The lesson provides an activity sheet, a link to a helpful applet (Cube Nets, cataloged separately), questions for students and teachers, and ideas for assessment and extensions.

This interactive applet helps students develop spatial visualization skills and geometric understanding in both two and three dimensions. From an array of possible nets, students try to select the ones that actually fold to a cube. The applet supports the lesson Building a Box (cataloged separately). An animation that shows one net being folded is included.

This Java interactive tool can be used to create dynamic drawings on an isometric dot grid, and to explore volume, surface area, and congruence concepts. Users can draw figures using edges, faces, or cubes and can shift, rotate, color, decompose, and view figures in 2‑D or 3‑D with this applet. Instructions on using and exploring with the tool are included on the page. A related multi-lesson unit from Illuminations for middle school students is linked to the side.

In this three-lesson unit, students participate in activities in which they focus on connections between mathematics and children’s literature. Three pieces of literature are used to teach geometry and measurement topics in the mathematics curriculum, i.e. using and describing geometric figures, estimating the volume of an irregular solid, and exploring the need for a standard unit of length. Activity worksheets and ideas for extension are included.

This resourse will aid students in understanding conceptually what the formula of volume means and how to caclulate volume with that understanding.   

Students will understand what the volume formula conceptually means by usiig cubes to create a prism.  They will then investigate the relationship between a Rectangular Prism and a Triangular Prism is, and the relationship between a prism to a pyramid, and how that affects the formula.