Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Surface Area Activity

Trapezoidal Prism

 Activity in my MAT 257 was somewhat interesting today because we got to find surface areas engaged in a hands-on group activity.  My group got the more difficult of five shapes, Trapezoidal Prism.  The other shapes were hexagonal prism, rectangular prism, truncated square pyramid, and a cylinder.  We were instructed to examine the shape, identify the shape, develop a plan for finding the surface area of the shape, perform calculations showing all steps, and label with proper units.  The tools given to us by the instructor was a worksheet, a ruler, a post-it poster, and a marker. 

Our first approach after identifying the shape was to identify how many faces our shape had and label it with an alphabet.  Our shape had six faces so we labeled it A through F.  Then, we had to determine what kind of shapes we would reveal if we could unfold it.  We determined that we would have two trapezoids and four squares.  Next, we had to figure out what formulas would accommodate us in figuring out our surface areas.  We came to the conclusion that our A and B sides, shaped like a trapezoid, would use the trapezoid formula of:  A=1/2h(b1+b2).  Our C, D, E, and F would be calculated using the rectangle formula which is, A=bh (Area = base X height).  As you can see, we had fun with it and we nailed it!! :)

Surface Area of a Trapezoidal Prism
Sources:

Surface Area Gallery, Mesa Community College. Personal photograph by Miranda Tachine-Benally. 2016.

Tachine-Benally, Miranda. Surface Area Activity. 28 Sept. 2016. Mesa Community College, Mesa.


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