Welcome to PLIX Beautiful Symmetry! Explore a branch of mathematics that's profound, yet accessible to creative learners.
🥰 For all ages! 🕐 1–1.5 Hours 👩👧👦 up to 15 Participants 🍎 1–2 Facilitators 🎨 Craft Materials 💻 Scratch Coding
Beautiful Symmetry adopts symmetry as a foundation around which to create works of art and functional materials in physical and digital formats.
Get Inspiration from the PLIX Community
By the PLIX Team
Level up STEAM learning by combining for complexity in this Beautiful Symmetry exploration with tessellation stamps!
by Mary Jo Parker, Lake Andes Carnegie Public Library, SD
This remix for a rural and tribal community introduces teens to a local tradition of giving a Native American Lone Star Quilt to teens upon graduating high school.
by PLIX Intern Kailey Bridgeman, and PLIX Ambassador Katelyn Turner, Roswell, NM
In this co-designed workshop, multiple STEAM challenges are chained together into a giant Rube Goldberg contraption room.
by the PLIX Team
For the ATALM 2022 conference, this workshop idea uses simple craft materials to uplift symmetries found in participants’ native cultural experiences
by PLIX team
A radial symmetry drawing interface using Scratch.
by the PLIX team
Use spreadsheets and unicode to make and break patterns
by the PLIX team
Patterns created by cutting potatoes and using them as stamps.
by PLIX Intern Jessica Zheng (MIT Class of 2027), and PLIX Ambassador Jennifer Vinzons, Kapolei, HI
In this co-designed STEAM escape room, multiple PLIX activities are adapted for the local Kapolei, HI, community, with a focus on native birds
by the PLIX team
Look around and explore symmetry found in the natural world.
by Katie Pendley, Pioneer Library System, Norman East Branch, OK
This Beautiful Symmetry remix is designed for a rural young adults with Disabilities group and formatted it to their needs.
by Cheryl Gleaton of Lucy Hilton Maddox Memorial Library, Blakely, GA
Attract library patrons to visit weekly to participate in this multisession exploration of creating beautiful aquatic symmetry to decorate an aquarium diorama
Explore winter symmetry through playing with snowflakes in this Beautiful Symmetry remix
Create different ways to track scores with peers, and reduce waste.
Prompts from PLIX
PLIX Community Remixes
Make snowflake designs with folded paper in this activity shared by Francesca Passiglia (Greenfield, MA).
Update your beautiful symmetry activity with inspiration from architecture, shared by Melissa Sprenne (Richland, SC).
Check out more examples and experiences from other librarians on the PLIX Forum Beautiful Symmetry space
Beautiful Symmetry Book Connections
Beautiful Symmetry by Alex Berke Ages 8+
Seeing Symmetry by Loreen Leedy Ages 5+ Recommended by Clara Hendricks (Cambridge Public Library, MA)
Swirl by Swirl by Joyce Sidman Ages 4+ Recommended by Elizabeth Weislak (Lorain Public Library, OH)
Materials
Supply Kit
Below you'll find some materials that we've found work well for this activity, but it's not necessary to have them all! The prompt you'll explore determines what materials you'll want to have on hand.
Supplementary Resources
PLIX zines are a supplementary resource for patrons and librarians to refer to. Use our guide to cut and assemble them.
Love our zine, but it doesn’t fit your adaptation of the activity? Remix our zine with this Google Slides template!
Try these variations of grids to play with symmetry
Facilitation
Playtest and Plan
Remember: There’s no one right way to prepare for a workshop. Use these steps as a loose guideline for planning to run this activity.
- Choose one of our prompts, or come up with a prompt that suits your library community. Our activity guides are for getting you started—feel free to change or create new design elements to suit your local community! All PLIX activity guides are designed for a minimum of 1–2 facilitators
- Gather materials and print out the zine.
- Make an example project. Try it out with friends and colleagues. Thoughtfully incomplete, good examples feature a variety of approaches and starting points. Use them to inspire learners to make something uniquely their own. Guide to Making Activity Examples →
- Try the activity with your patrons. Set a date and time. Easily promote your workshop with our editable Beautiful Symmetry flyer template →
- Populate your workshop space with diverse example projects. Create and play together!
- Reflect on what you’ve done and consider doing a remix!
Did you come up with new prompts? Share your ideas with your peers on the PLIX Forum. Try our Remix Share-Out template if you’d like us to feature your remix!
Facilitation Tips
Since there are many ways to explore symmetry, patrons may need some guidance in how or where to get started. When facilitating this activity, we encourage you to support a tinkering mindset, and consider the following to culture a creative learning environment. Check out our general PLIX Facilitation Techniques →
into creative learning facilitation with our Self-Guided Mini Course. It’ll also help you get started running your first PLIX workshop.
About PLIX Beautiful Symmetry
This activity was developed in collaboration with Jean Slavkovsky (Malden Public Library, Massachusetts), Claudia Haines (Homer Public Library, Alaska), and Alex Berke (MIT Media Lab graduate student) as part of the PLIX Co-Design program, in which Media Lab researchers team up with public librarians to create new PLIX programming.
Other ways to engage with the PLIX Beautiful Symmetry activity:
- Looking for some background music? Check out our PLIX Beautiful Symmetry Playlist 🎶
- Questions? Ask them on the PLIX Discussion Forum 🙋♀️
- Share your experience running this activity on Twitter or Instagram and tag us @heyplix