Problem of the Month: February 2022

ACES’s curriculum is carefully designed to help students engage through fun, hands-on projects that reinforce core classroom concepts. This month, our students at Global Arts Plus practiced identifying edges and faces on 3D geometric figures (polyhedrons) while creating models with toothpicks and marshmallows! For our February Problem of the Month, we challenge you to identify the number of edges and faces on some common polyhedra. If you have toothpicks and marshmallows on hand, have some fun building the models yourself! Pro-tip: this activity pairs perfectly with a mug of hot chocolate on a cold winter day!

Definitions:

A polyhedron is a three-dimensional shape with flat polygonal faces, straight edges and sharp corners or vertices.
A face is any of the individual flat surfaces of a solid object.
For a polyhedron an edge is a line segment where two faces meet.

How many faces and edges are there in each of the following common polyhedra? Scroll down for the answer!