As a result of decades of classroom trial in Australian schools over 220 tasks have been chosen to provide learning materials which support the professional growth of teachers interested in developing:

• hands-on problem solving
• discussion
• recording
• publishing

in mathematics classes.

The criteria for choosing the tasks in the collection are:

• the task needs hands-on materials to support the solution of the problem
• the task is intrinsically motivating
• the task contains an intellectual challenge likely to bring some success in 15 - 20 minutes
• the task as presented is the tip of an iceberg which provides deeper investigation
• the task has three lives - as an invitation for two students to work like a mathematician; as a whole class investigation; as a deeper investigation guided by an investigation sheet
• the task can be used to illustrate characteristics of the Working Mathematically process

Following through the Sphinx task below will prepare you to obtain more information about the project from the Task Centre Home Base on the web.

Sphinx

(Task 166 from the Curriculum Corporation collection)

• Save it, ie: click and hold on the picture and follow the instructions. With a Windows machine you may need to use your right mouse button.
• Open the picture in another program (later word processors or a drawing program)
• Enlarge it to a size that suits if you need to (but if you do the image will bit map - lines will become zig zag)
• Copy it to make four sphinxes
• Print and cut out.

New in 2001
Strong, colourful plastic Sphinx Shapes now available in bulk. If you get hooked on this problem, or if you decide to use it with a whole class, you might prefer to purchase these shapes.

Your Problem
Make a new sphinx from four sphinx shapes.

• Move on to:
  • Sphinx - Into The Iceberg
• Return to:
  • Task Centre Project Navigation File
• Return to:
  • Mathematics Education Projects details
• Return to:
  • Welcome page