How Do You See the Shapes Growing?

I was at the ICTM Math Conference 2015 in Tinley Park IL and Jo Boaler @JoBoaler was the keynote.  It was fantastic.  Here is a question she presented to us.



HOW DO YOU SEE THE SHAPES GROWING?

What would this look like at the 100th step?  How did you figure it out?  These kinds of questions she told us were low floor and high ceiling questions.  They are easy enough to start but challenging to all as well.  

I have gone to the website http://www.visualpatterns.org/ and found a few problems.  This is the worksheet that we did in Precalculus just the other day.  I really liked that the students were engaged the whole period.  They did not know how the shapes would work out.  (linear, quadratic, exponential...) It was fun seeing them struggle.  They really were working it.  Here is the google doc if you would like to use it in any way. 
http://tinyurl.com/visualpatternschallenge  For your information I randomly assigned students 3 to a group.  I thought 3 people working together created a nice dynamic.  






If you really want to take this a step further  (get it,  a STEP further) then you can try to work the digital drawing.

Here comes the fun part.  How about you create the next shape?  Can you show how it grows with color?  Click the link below and get the document in a Google Drawing.  Once you have done that get a screenshot and add it to the Padlet below.

CREATE YOUR OWN NEXT SHAPE CLICK HERE 

Get a Screenshot of your creation and add it to the Padlet below. (Just double click anywhere in the Padlet and add the url or upload a screenshot or the actual image)

Created with Padlet