Interactivate: Surface Area of a Rectangular Prism

This lesson is designed to introduce students to the concept of surface area and how to find the surface area of rectangular prisms.

Upon completion of this lesson, students will:

Arithmetic: Students must be able to:
- perform integer and rational arithmetic
- find the area of squares and rectangles
Technological: Students must be able to:
- perform basic mouse manipulations such as point, click and drag
- use a browser for experimenting with the activities

surface area

A measure of the number of square units needed to cover the outside of a figure

Focus and Review

Remind students what has been covered in previous lessons and have students review the following:

Objectives

Let students know what they will be doing and learning today. Say something like this:

Today we are going to be discussing surface area and finding the surface area of rectangular prisms.
We are going to continue to use the Surface Area and Volume applet that we have used previously to find the volume of prisms. Please don't open your computers until I instruct you to do so.

Teacher Input

Lead students in a discussion about surface area.
Be prepared to show students physical models of prisms and explain the pairs of sides.

Guided Practice

Introduce Surface Area and Volume applet to students who are unfamiliar.
Make sure that students are using Rectangular Prism under the drop-down menu.
Note: If students will be using the Compute mode for finding only the surface area of the rectangular prism, be sure to show students the error message that will appear.

Independent Practice

Have students open Surface Area and Volume applet to Compute mode and choose Rectangular Prism from the drop-down menu.
Have students work in pairs to complete the Surface Area of a Rectangular Prism Record Sheet.
Teacher should monitor the room for questions and make sure that students are on the correct website.

Closure

You may wish to bring the class back together to discuss any problems that were especially hard for students to solve. Once the students have been allowed to share what they found, summarize once more the main points of the lesson.
You may wish to have students discuss the second question on the Record Sheet that asks students to look for a relationship between the volume and surface area of a rectangular prism.

This lesson can be rearranged for if there is only one computer available in the classroom.

Instead of having students complete Record Sheet in pairs, display the Compute mode on a classroom computer, record the dimensions on the whiteboard, and have students work independently to solve for the surface area. Once students have computed the surface area, have one student enter the number to check answer.

This lesson is designed to be followed by a lesson that generalizes the formula for surface area to all prisms.

Interactivate