1 What do you picture in your mind when you hear rectangular prism?

2 What do you picture in your mind when you hear surface area?

3 Open the Surface Area of a Rectangular Prism Starter File and click "Run".

4 Type prism into the Interactions Area and hit "enter" to see an image of a rectangular prism. What do you notice about the image?

5 How many faces does this prism have?

Find PART 1 in the starter file. You will see a definition for front and back.

6 How did the author know to use width and height as the dimensions for front and back?

7 Why are front and back defined to be the same thing?

8 Add definitions for the other faces of the prism, using these definitions as a model, and the image of the prism as a support.

Find PART 2 in the starter file. You’ll see a list that only includes front and back.

9 Complete the faces list, then type (print-imgs faces) into the interactions area. What do you see?

We’re going to print the faces following directions in PART 3 and build a paper model of a rectangular prism.

Before you print and build your prism, you can change the length, width, and height of your prism at the top of the starter file. Be sure that all 3 dimensions are different, and that they are all small enough to fit on a sheet of paper. If you change them, record your new dimensions here.

LENGTH: WIDTH: HEIGHT:

12 Calculate the surface area of your prism, by adding the area of each face. Show your work below.

 

 

13 In PART 4 of the starter file, you wrote code to calculate the surface area. How many definitions did you use?

14 How does the surface area that the computer returns compare to the surface area you calculated by hand?

These materials were developed partly through support of the National Science Foundation, (awards 1042210, 1535276, 1648684, and 1738598). CCbadge Bootstrap by the Bootstrap Community is licensed under a Creative Commons 4.0 Unported License. This license does not grant permission to run training or professional development. Offering training or professional development with materials substantially derived from Bootstrap must be approved in writing by a Bootstrap Director. Permissions beyond the scope of this license, such as to run training, may be available by contacting contact@BootstrapWorld.org.