Bees are amazing insects by all accounts. As they go about their lives, it turns out that there are a number of patterns that we can study and use to learn about them and explore maths. We’ve explored these patterns in our online maths clubs all week. If you are interested in signing up for a free trial session of our online maths clubs, go to https://online.roots2grow.org/ and register interest. We’re going to look at a few of those patterns here.
The first is the fact that male bees don’t have fathers but female bees do! This leads to an interesting pattern if we explore the ancestry of a bee. We’ll also look at the challenge bees might face when pollinating flowers and why bees might choose to build hexagonal structures in their hives rather than square based grids.
We hope that this will get you chatting about bees and their patterns. We would love it if you do have any #momentsofmaths while doing this if you could share them with us. You can do this in the comments or by uploading a picture to the gallery.
Some related topics:
- sequences (Fibonacci, Hexagonal)
- trees (as data structures)
- measurement
- Tessellation
To try this activity:
- Download the resource file with templates and challenges
- Print out the file
- Get coloured pencils and scissors
- Watch the video below
- This one’s aimed at KS1 activities – KS1 video
- …and here’s a video going into the algebra in just a little more depth
Download or share all of these challenges with this pdf and let us know how you got on with it by tweeting using #momentofmaths and start to see Every moment is a #momentofmaths. Please add any photos or videos to our gallery. Here’s the link: View and upload moments. Remember you can explore the chalenges that we post here in our online maths clubs where you get an online version that you can play with directly on your computer. To find out more about our online clubs go to https://online.roots2grow.org/
