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Surface area and volume

Learning objects Surface area and volume

TLF ID M012002

This is an interactive resource about investigating the surface areas and volumes of rectangular and triangular prisms. The resource can be used in one of two modes. In the Explore mode, the student can vary the height, width and depth of the prism, and the surface area and volume are calculated automatically. In the Compute mode, the dimensions of the prism are given, and students are required to calculate the surface area and volume. The resource allows students to view the prisms from different perspectives.

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Educational details

Educational value
  • This interactive resource is useful for the Australian Curriculum content descriptions in years 7 and 8 mathematics about calculating volumes of rectangular and triangular prisms. It can contribute to students attaining those elements of the achievement standards about describing different views of three-dimensional objects and solving problems relating to the volumes of prisms.
  • The resource is useful for providing students with the opportunity to investigate how changing the dimensions of a prism can affect its surface area and volume, and to practise calculating these quantities. The option of having different views of the prism makes it easier to visualise faces of the three-dimensional shapes.
  • The resource provides immediate feedback and students can make repeated attempts if a question is not answered correctly. The activity automatically records how successfully the questions are answered, and a score based on the number of attempts can be shown in a pop-up window. The answer may be found by selecting the 'Show Answers' button if the student is unable to calculate the answers.
  • The Learner and Help tabs, which can easily be accessed from the Activity screen, provide detailed and useful definitions of terms and information about completing the activity effectively.
Year level

7; 8

Topics Surface area Volume (Dimensions) Cubic metres Prisms Isometric drawing Nets (Geometry) Right prisms Orthographic projection
Learning area
  • Mathematics

Other details

Contributors
  • Contributor
  • Name: Education Services Australia
  • Organization: Education Services Australia
  • Description: Data manager
  • Address: VIC, AUSTRALIA
  • URL: http://www.esa.edu.au/
  • Copyright Holder
  • Name: Shodor Education Foundation\, Inc.
  • Organization: Shodor Education Foundation\, Inc.
  • Address: UNITED STATES
  • URL: http://www.shodor.org/
  • Publisher
  • Name: Shodor Education Foundation\, Inc.
  • Organization: Shodor Education Foundation\, Inc.
  • Description: Publisher
  • Address: UNITED STATES
  • URL: http://www.shodor.org/
  • Resource metadata contributed by
  • Name: Education Services Australia Ltd
  • Organisation: Education Services Australia Ltd
  • Address: AUSTRALIA
  • URL: www.esa.edu.au
Access profile
  • Unknown
Learning Resource Type
  • Interactive
Rights
  • © Shodor Education Foundation, Inc. This material is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC 3.0) licence http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/.