Video/3D shapes

The following video clips are from a lesson on 3D shapes in Grade 7, at Luzuko Primary School. They were filmed in March 2012.

About Luzuko Primary School

In 2012, the situation of the school was as follows: The socio-economic level of the school is at a low level with high unemployment in the Guguletu township. Many learners stay with their grandparents and their parents have disappeared from the scene. Those parents who do earn a salary usually have a drinking problem. The mothers usually keep on drinking during pregnancy and the learners suffer at school because of that. The school is a quintile 3 school receiving food parcels from the nutritional programme of the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) (c.f. click here to see more about the meaning of 'quintile'). There are significant health issues, and many learners have poor concentration ability. These issues also apply to Masiphumelele Primary School.

The school was built in the 1960s. There are 408 learners in the school that was built for 600 learners. The school goes from Grade R to Grade 7. The Grade R class is not well equipped. The Grade 1 teacher left the teaching profession and the WCED will not supply another teacher to the school because of the dwindling numbers.

English is presented to the learners as a second language. English is not often spoken outside of the classroom. During break-time and after school the learners speak Xhosa – it is just seen as a school subject. Lessons are taught in English from Grade 4 onward with some code switching. All public tests are in English.

About the lesson

The lesson is about investigating a particular property of 3D shapes, namely the relationship between the number of vertices, edges, and faces (sometimes referred to as Euler's relation). Learners make shapes from nets (provided as cardboard nets) and cut out shapes from a worksheet. They then record the number of vertices, edges, and faces of each shape, and draw conclusions.