Activity Overview
In this activity, students use the Geoboard to determine the areas of quadrilaterals between parallel lines.
Before the Activity
Start the Geoboard App and format it
See the attached PDF file for detailed instructions for this activity
Print pages 37 - 46 from the attached PDF file for your class
During the Activity
Distribute the page to the class.
Follow the Activity procedures:
Construct two parallel line segments, with a distance of 5 units between them
Between these two parallel lines build three different parallelograms with the same base of 1 unit and same height of 5 units Calculate the area of the parallelograms, and observe that it is the same as the area of a rectangle with the same height and base (5 square units)
Draw three trapezoids between the parallel lines that have the same bottom base length of 2 units, top base length of 1 unit and height 5 unitsCalculate the area of the trapezoidsNote the area of trapezoids is equal to 7.5 square unitsObserve that the area of quadrilaterals between parallel lines with same base and height area equal
After the Activity
Review student results:
As a class, discuss questions that appeared to be more challenging
Re-teach concepts as necessary