What Can I Teach Using Zometool?

The Zometool System can help you deliver a wide range of concepts in the classroom, the same kit used in elementary school can be used by high school aged students and higher:

Elementary School Level

•Number sense: Connecting numbers to shapes in the real world

•Symmetry and proportion

•Working with 2 and 3 dimensions

•Geometry: angles, area, perimeter and polygons

•Tessellations and pattern recognition

Middle School Level

•Intermediate geometry, polyhedra and projection modeling

•Numbers and structure in physics and architecture

•Geometry connections: manifestations in science and fine arts

•Mineral crystals and molecular structures

•Advanced tessellations and packing in 2 and 3 dimensions

High School Level

•Advanced geometry, fractals and topology

•Geometry in 4th and higher dimensions

•Fibonacci numbers and the Golden Mean in math, biology and art

•Modeling of DNA molecules, Buckyballs and crystalline lattices

•Trigonometry and algebra

Teaching with Zometool

Zometool offers students the opportunity to make the creation, even of highly sophisticated models, an enjoyable and engaging activity. It offers substantial benefits to students that go beyond its valuable support of curricular material:

Powerful 3D Pattern Recognition

Using Zometool requires students to (painlessly) acquire sophisticated three-dimensional pattern recognition. Each of the Strut types (Blue, Yellow, Red and Green) is a complete a system by itself; students become fluent in the features and nuances of each of these systems as well as the interactions and connections between them!

Self Confidence

One of the most rewarding aspects of using Zometool with students is to witness the pride with which they glow after their discoveries and achievements, parents have often been astonished after workshop at the what their children have built.

Big Picture Mindset

The fact that they are learning about Math, Art, Engineering, Biology and Chemistry from the same system reinforces the interconnectedness of all things and encourages students to look for connections across disciplines broadening their perspective.

There are many other benefits that come from using the system, make sure you read some of the true quotes we’ve gotten from educators.

From Wikipedia:

“Thinking allows beings to model the world and to deal with it effectively according to their objectives, plans, ends and desires.”

“Modeling is an essential and inseparable part of all scientific activity...”

“My name is Jessie Kottmeyer and I am 7 and half. I live in Downingtown PA . I have been a playing with Zometool for a couple of years. I can build lots of cool things, like the geodesic dome and the little and big truss bridge and the dodecahedron. I can build things, and then take them apart and build more! And I can find the things that I build outside. If I build a snowflake, and it's snowing, I can go out and find one like it. I found a paper wasp's nest that was made out of hexagons, and I saw geodesic dome house on the way to Thanksgiving dinner.”

Jessie’s 3rd Grade Math Fair project on 3-Dimensional Shapes