NRICH 3D shapes
This list supports teaching of 3D shapes in secondary mathematics. It provides investigations, problems and games from NRICH as well as classroom activities on the STEM Learning website that compliment them.
Here are some favourite activities selected by the NRICH team.
- Marbles in a Box This problem considers a three dimensional version of noughts and crosses and poses the question of how many winning lines are there?
- Tet-trouble This problem considers the conditions on six edge lengths in order for them to form a tetrahedron.
These are just a few of the activities on 3D shapes that you can find on the NRICH curriculum pages.
The activities below, taken from the STEM Learning website, complement the NRICH activities above.
Performing Number Magic A9
The NRICH activity 'Marbles in a Box' can be generalised to an n by n box using algebra.
This DfE Standards Unit is a helpful prelude to the algebra involved in the 'Marbles in a Box' activity. Generalisation is the underlying concept explored in the materials with students using algebra to prove generalisations in a number of situations.
Tetrahedron
This interactive file from the 'Virtual Textbook' is a useful activity to complete as a follow on to the NRICH 'Tet-trouble' problem.
The file deals with various angles and lengths within tetrahedrons. The topics involved include Pythagoras' Theorem and trigonometry. There is the facility to find angles and lengths in a tetrahedron where the base is an isosceles triangle.
Crystal Shapes 2
This activity is ideal to use prior to students working on the NRICH activity 'Tet-trouble'
This activity from Cre8ate maths explores Platonic solids, which are formed from regular polygons where all their faces are identical and all their vertices are identical too. Students are told that there are only five platonic solids, which they can build using triangles, squares and pentagons.
