Sunflowers and Geometry : The Fibonacci Sequence

 Hello everyone again!,

     In today's post we will dive a little deeper into the fascinating world of geometry, exploring the world of the Fibonacci sequence and its surprising relationship with sunflowers. Are you ready to discover how geometry is linked to sunflowers?

    
    To begin with, the Fibonacci sequence is a succession of numbers in which each of them is the sum of the two previous ones, that is to say : 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34... This sequence has a great background that we find in nature, and one of the most remarkable ones, in sunflowers. Below, I insert a short video in which the Fibonacci sequence is explained in a simple and visual way.

When we look closely at the centre of a sunflower, we can see a unique arrangement of seeds, we can find the spirals clockwise and counterclockwise, and we discover that these numbers coincide exactly with the Fibonacci sequence.

In addition to all this, the arrangement of these seeds follows very striking geometric patterns. If we draw lines from the centre of the sunflower to the rest of the seeds, they result in angles that approximate to golden angles, which are related to the concept of the golden ratio. Each of these geometric patterns demonstrates, once again, how nature creates truly beautiful images through mathematical and geometric precision.

Building our own Sunflowers

As future teachers, I am going to develop an activity desgined to introduce our primary school

students to the world of sunflowers and the Fibonacci sequence. To do this, we will need yellow and brown paper, scissors, glue and coloured pencil:

        1. First, we will prepare the students by showing them images provided by professionals to observe the seed patterns.

        2. Next, each student will use their yellow paper and draw a large circle in the centre of the paper to represent the centre of the sunflower following the Fibonacci sequence, thus drawing lines from the centre of the sunflower outwards.

        3. On each line, the students should glue sunflower seeds cut out of brown paper following the arrangement of the sequence explained. For example, one seed on the first seed, one seed on the second seed, two seeds on the third line....

        4. Once all the seeds are glued, students can decorate and add details such as the stem of the sunflower, green leaves...

        5. Finally, to represent that they have followed the Fibonacci sequence, they should label each line with the corresponding number of the sequence.

As you can see, this activity not only helps students better understand the Fibonacci sequence and geometry, but also fosters creativity and critical thinking among many other skills. . . . I hope your students enjoy building their own geometric sunflowers while learning about the magical relationship between geometry and nature! See you next time!