Surface Area of Right Prisms

5 min

Teacher Prep
Setup
Students in groups of 2. Display prism for all to see, 1 minutes of quiet think time followed by partner and whole-class discussion.

Narrative

The purpose of this Warm-up is for students to recognize important parts of solids in anticipation of computing volume and surface area. The figure used in the next activity is introduced in this Warm-up as a way for students to start thinking about parts of solids and how we use them to compute surface area or volume.

Launch

Arrange students in groups of 2. Display the prism assembled from the blackline master for all to see. Give students 1 minute of quiet think time, followed by time to discuss their ideas with a partner. Follow this with a whole-class discussion.

Student Task

Your teacher will show you a prism.

  1. What are some things you could measure about the object?

  2. What units would you use for these measurements?

Sample Response

  1. Sample response: You could measure the length of each of the edges of the object, the volume of the object, or the area of the faces.
  2. Sample response: Lengths could be measured in inches or centimeters. Volume could be measured in cubic inches, cubic centimeters, or milliliters. Area could be measured in square inches or square centimeters.
Activity Synthesis (Teacher Notes)

Select students to share their responses. The goal of this discussion is to clarify what units would be reasonable and why. Here are some questions for discussion:

  • “What are some units that would not make sense for this situation?” (Miles, seconds)
  • “Explain why those units would not make sense.” (Miles would not be a good unit for length because miles are so large the measurement would be close to 0. Seconds would not be a good unit for volume because seconds measure time, and volume is a measurement of space.)
Standards
Building On
  • 3.MD.5·Recognize area as an attribute of plane figures and understand concepts of area measurement.
  • 3.MD.8·Solve real world and mathematical problems involving perimeters of polygons, including finding the perimeter given the side lengths, finding an unknown side length, and exhibiting rectangles with the same perimeter and different areas or with the same area and different perimeters.
  • 3.MD.C.5·Recognize area as an attribute of plane figures and understand concepts of area measurement.
  • 3.MD.D.8·Solve real world and mathematical problems involving perimeters of polygons, including finding the perimeter given the side lengths, finding an unknown side length, and exhibiting rectangles with the same perimeter and different areas or with the same area and different perimeters.
  • 6.G.4·Represent three-dimensional figures using nets made up of rectangles and triangles, and use the nets to find the surface area of these figures. Apply these techniques in the context of solving real-world and mathematical problems.
  • 6.G.A.4·Represent three-dimensional figures using nets made up of rectangles and triangles, and use the nets to find the surface area of these figures. Apply these techniques in the context of solving real-world and mathematical problems.
Building Toward
  • 7.G.6·Solve real-world and mathematical problems involving area, volume and surface area of two- and three-dimensional objects composed of triangles, quadrilaterals, polygons, cubes, and right prisms.
  • 7.G.B.6·Solve real-world and mathematical problems involving area, volume and surface area of two- and three-dimensional objects composed of triangles, quadrilaterals, polygons, cubes, and right prisms.

15 min

15 min