Understanding Polyhedral Diagrams
Barb Dutrow (Louisiana State University) and Carol Ormand (SERC at Carleton College)
This activity was selected for the On the Cutting Edge Exemplary Teaching Collection
Resources in this top level collection a) must have scored Exemplary or Very Good in all five review categories, and must also rate as "Exemplary" in at least three of the five categories. The five categories included in the peer review process are
- Scientific Accuracy
- Alignment of Learning Goals, Activities, and Assessments
- Pedagogic Effectiveness
- Robustness (usability and dependability of all components)
- Completeness of the ActivitySheet web page
For more information about the peer review process itself, please see https://serc.carleton.edu/teachearth/activity_review.html.
- First Publication: May 12, 2015
- Reviewed: July 11, 2017 -- Reviewed by the On the Cutting Edge Activity Review Process
Summary
Two tetrahedra sharing one atom
![[creative commons]](/images/creativecommons_16.png)
Provenance: Image from Wikimedia Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Silicate-double-tetrahedra-3D-polyhedra.png
Reuse: This item is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ You may reuse this item for non-commercial purposes as long as you provide attribution and offer any derivative works under a similar license.
In this exercise, students identify individual polyhedra in a variety of diagrams and answer questions about shared oxygens in diagrams of common silicate structures.
Topics
Mineralogy Grade Level
College Lower (13-14), College Upper (15-16)
Readiness for Online Use
Online Ready 
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Learning Goals
After successfully completing this exercise, students will be able to
- Recognize tetrahedra and octahedra in a wide variety of mineral diagrams and from a wide variety of perspectives.
- Interpret diagrams of linked polyhedra.
Context for Use
This exercise is designed for use early in a Mineralogy course, where students will be exposed to a wide variety of diagrams of mineral structures. It is intended to help students understand those diagrams.
Description and Teaching Materials
In this exercise, students identify individual polyhedra in a variety of diagrams and answer questions about shared oxygens in diagrams of common silicate structures.
Polyhedra and shared oxygens exercise (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 1.1MB May12 15)
Assessment
Student understanding is assessed by grading their answers on the worksheet.
References and Resources
Students may find the paper foldout models of polyhedra available at http://www.progonos.com/furuti/MapProj/Normal/ProjPoly/Foldout/foldout.html useful.
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