Fibonacci Spirals in the Woods

A few weeks ago I ran across the wonderful videos by Vi Hart combining mathematics with doodles and plants and flowers.  These start by beautifully demonstrating how many plants and flowers grow in spiral forms that follow the Fibonacci series of numbers (you remember, in which each number in the series is the sum of the two previous-- 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, etc.)  Part 1 is below. 

This captured my imagination. So during one of the sunbreaks, the kids and I watched this again, then headed out to the trails in the woods out the back, to see if we could find any spirals.  Being mid-winter, it's not the best time to go looking, but we did find cones from a Douglas Fir and some kind of lonely pine tree (we forgot the identification books in our haste to get outside). 

Then, we brought the cones inside and got to counting. 

Like Vi Hart, we used different colors to help keep track of the rows of spirals.  Glitter glue was involved. 

And it worked!  For both types of cones, Fibonacci numbers represent!

If/when we try this again in the spring or summer, I'm going to make sure we have *fresh* tubes of glitter glue on hand, and find larger cones or flowers to count.  These little guys were still tight and tiny.  Definitely a fun diversion, though!

Miss L just saw the video screen again over my shoulder as I type this and asked to watch it again.  So, until next time...