BY ANDREA TORTORA
The Cincinnati Enquirer
John Lindle stands atop a geodesic half-sphere dome built by his students.
(Patrick Reddy photo)
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INDEPENDENCE -- The beauty of mathematics is embodied in one shape for retiring Simon Kenton High School teacher John Lindle: the geodesic dome.
A spherical object formed from triangular components, the dome showcases every aspect of geometry, from parallel lines to trapezoids and hexagons.
Mr. Lindle's passions for woodworking and teaching geometry led to a love affair with domes. Students become so interested in math that they come to school when the doors are closed to work on their project.
"I know the teachers are probably tired of domes, but when you're in my class you're going to work with domes," Mr. Lindle said recently as he showed off the 27,000-cubic-foot dome he built with students during the past three years.
The majestic dome, painted in the school's blue and white colors, sits on a patch of grass atop Simon Kenton's baseball field, near the entrance to the football stadium.
It can be seen from Madison Pike and from many classrooms inside the school.
A 10-sided concrete slab forms the floor under the structure's blue roof. Wooden benches made by students in Tim Hyatt's wood shop line the interior. Students come here to eat lunch. Teachers use the space as an outdoor classroom. And sports fans hide here from rain and excessive sun.
Mr. Lindle, who retired this summer after 27 years as a middle school and high school teacher, said being able to visit the dome -- now a permanent piece of the Simon Kenton campus -- will remind him of the things he loves.
This obsession with domes started when Mr. Lindle was a student. He heard famous architects speak about the spherical shapes as sturdy structures.
Domes are considered extremely strong, even without internal supports. The circular shape disperses pressure across the entire surface.
Such shapes also occur naturally. Many molecular structures take the shape of geodesic domes in their most stable forms.
And Walt Disney World made the geodesic dome famous with the park's huge silver sphere at Epcot Center.
Mr. Lindle decided that domes were a good way to teach geometry. A dome looks symmetrical but is really made of uneven lines and angles that form triangles. And that's where the beauty comes in.
"I have a philosophy of hands-on investigation and discovery," Mr. Lindle said. "I want to show them a real-world application of the concept."
Students started with a small-scale model made of pipe cleaners and straws. It was their task to figure how to keep all the angles together.
Once students mastered the model, they wanted to build a larger dome. Mr. Lindle helped them create a dome tent using PVC pipe as the supports and garden hose at the junction points. The tent slept 15 people, and students and their families would often borrow it to go camping.
Then a sophomore class decided it wanted to build a wooden dome. Mr. Lindle told the class members they would have to figure how to make the angles stay rigid.
Using markers, students drew their ideas on watermelons and balloons until they came up with a buildable plan.
With plenty of trial and error and problem-solving thrown in, students built a dome from 65 2-by-4s. They got the wood through donations and by searching scrap piles. That first wooden dome was a prototype. The wood wasn't pressure-treated, so it couldn't be permanent.
But each class wanted to work on domes. Mr. Lindle used that as an incentive to learn geometry. When he won a Presidential Award for teaching, he used some of the $7,500 prize money to help finance the permanent dome.
Working with retired wood shop teacher Eugene Keith, Mr. Lindle created a way for students in both classes to build the structure. The wood shop students cut the wood and prepared the angles -- no piece of wood used in the dome is more than 8 feet long. The geometry students worked on the construction plans. Principal Michael Tolliver covered the cost of the concrete floor.
And every semester brought new students, who could add their own touch, to the project.
Junior Greg Eubanks said he liked the way the dome showed all the different angles that exist.
"I work with my dad in construction, and this was a neat way to combine what I learned there with what I learned in class," Greg said.
The experience taught other students a lot about using math, sparked ideas about ways to mass market the domes as temporary shelters for the homeless, and even inspired one of Mr. Lindle's former students to start building his own dome home in a secluded part of eastern Kentucky.
"Of all the things I've done in 27 years with my students, this is probably the neatest project I've ever worked on," Mr. Lindle said. "This is my baby, and I will miss doing this stuff with the kids."
