2000 December 19

Rose of Patagonia displayed at Escuela 168 Puerto Madryn .

Last winter, our teacher Claudia Didoné told us how children in England have a lot of fun playing with coins because English coins are magnetic.

Unfortunately our coins are not magnetic but Claudia told us how we could still have a lot of fun, making beautiful patterns with our own coins and other round objects.

We learnt how six round objects fit exactly around another round object, when they are all of the same size. Claudia told us how in England people like roses very much and how seven coins placed together like this had been called Hesterīs Rose.

In the summer there are also many beautiful roses in Puerto Madryn.

Claudia also told us about another type of rose, the beautiful glass windows called "rose windows" in some cathedrals in Europe - for example Notre Dame in Paris, Chartres and Durham.

With the extra help of one of our other teachers, Rodolfo Silveyra we decided to build our own rose window, but one made out of coins. We would call our rose "The Giant Rose of Patagonia 2000".

Rose of Patagonia made from 133 coins from around the world. Click photo to enlarge

We did not want to have just Argentinian coins in our Rose of Patagonia but coins from all around the world. So we wrote a letter to all the Embassies of different countries in Buenos Aires to see if they could help. Several of the Embassies repled very quickly: many have still not replied.

Before putting our Rose of Patagonia together we examined all the coins carefully. We looked at the writing and the patterns on both sides of each coin. we measured their diameters and checked to see if they were magnetic. We will show you the results soon.

By December we had received more than 80 coins. Together with some Argentinan coins and some others foreign coins which the teachers gave us, we were able to make our rose. Here it is. We hope you like it.

We would like to thank all the Embassies that helped us.

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