Gesu School community builds giant tetrahedron
On display at Gesu School’s STREAM (Science, Technology, Religion, Engineering, Art and Math) Showcase and Open House on Jan. 29 was a nearly 15-foot-tall tetrahedron, made up of more than 4,000 individual 2-inch tetrahedrons.
The project began in October, when two sixth-grade reading classes taught by Josie Jones, read All of the Above by Shelley Pearsall. The novel is based on a true story about a seventh-grade math class on Cleveland’s East Side that set out to be in the Guinness Book of World Records for constructing the largest multi-stage tetrahedron.
The Gesu sixth-graders asked if they, too, could try to build a multi-stage tetrahedron. The director of Gesu’s STREAM program joined forces with Jones, to help the students undertake and complete the project.
After much calculation and deliberation, it was determined that it would take several thousand small tetrahedrons to build the largest multi-stage tetrahedron that would fit in the school. After some experimenting with materials and factoring in cost, the decision was made to use white card stock. The entire school community—hundreds of students from Gesu’s preschool through eighth grade, as well as teachers, families and alumni—joined in to decorate, cut out and assemble each of the small white tetrahedrons. The small tetrahedrons were then assembled into increasingly larger ones, culminating in the 14- by 15-foot structure.
Marjorie Gessner is the STREAM coordinator at Gesu School in University Heights.