Surface Area Using Nets (Prisms & Pyramids)

All the sides are congruent, and all the angles are congruent.

Rectangles still have four congruent angles. They have two pairs of congruent sides instead of all four congruent sides. So, a square is a special kind of rectangle.

For any rectangle, I can multiply length by width, or base by height. If it’s a square, I can multiply one side length by itself.

Base times height divided by two, or half the base times the height.

A prism is a solid object with two identical ends and flat sides connecting them. A prism where all of the sides are squares is called a cube. A pyramid is a solid object where there is a polygon on the base and the sides are triangles that meet at a point at the top.

A cube.

Find the area of one face, then multiply by 6.

I have to add up all of the face’s areas, some of them might be triangles or other shapes.

The prism consists of rectangles along with whatever shape the two bases are. The pyramid has triangles along with whatever shape the one base is.

Picture unfolding the shape until it lies flat, and make sure that only congruent sides are touching.