Introduction

Take a look at the picture below. In order to decorate the room, you would need know the length of skirting required (perimeter), how much carpet to order and how many tins of paint to buy (area). You would also need to use your rounding skills (as items such as paint and skirting must be bought in full units) and your addition and multiplication knowledge – to work out the cost!

Figure 1 Floor plan of a house

This session of the course will draw upon the skills you learned in the ‘Working with numbers’ and ‘Units of measure’ sessions.

Throughout this session you will learn how to find the perimeter, area and volume of simple and more complex shapes – if you’ve ever decorated a room you will be familiar with these skills already. It’s important to be able to work out area and perimeter accurately to ensure you buy enough of each material (but not too much to avoid wastage).

Once your room is beautifully decorated, you’re going to need to plan the best layout for your furniture (and make sure it fits!). You may well use a scale drawing to achieve this.

By the end of this session you will be able to:

• understand the difference between perimeter, area and volume and be able to calculate these for both simple and more complex shapes

• know that volume is a measure of space inside a 3D object and calculate volumes of shapes in order to solve practical problems

• draw and use a scale drawing or plan.

Transcript