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It's a Fence!

Age 5 to 11
Challenge Level Yellow star
  • Problem
  • Getting Started
  • Student Solutions
  • Teachers' Resources


We had some good responses from the John Cabot Academy in Bristol UK.

Hannah and Mary wrote:


We think the triangle format would work better with the circular fence, you would be able to have more triangle arranged trees and you would have more land if you wanted to put up more fences. Also, you would pollute the earth less by having more trees in one fence.

Jess and Katie added:


We thought about it and we think that the shapes which will work better are a circle, an octagon or a decagon.

Connor, Ben, Ray, Natty, Aimee and Laura said that $14$ in triangles was best.

But Emily and Megan said that their solution was to build a fence around the trangular trees, so you can get at least $16$ trees in there. I guess that many more ideas came to people's minds but were not sent in. Remember we are very interested in whatever comes out of these explorations.


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The NRICH Project aims to enrich the mathematical experiences of all learners. To support this aim, members of the NRICH team work in a wide range of capacities, including providing professional development for teachers wishing to embed rich mathematical tasks into everyday classroom practice.

NRICH is part of the family of activities in the Millennium Mathematics Project.

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