A Math Journey Around the Wonders of the World

A Math Journey Around the Wonders of the World — page 1
MISSION 1 THE PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT Your first mission takes you to Egypt Three giant stone pyramids were built there more than 3,000 years ago as burial tombs for Egyptian kings They still tower above the desert sands Your task is to figure out their sizes LEARN IT ABOUT NETS PYRAMIDS AND SURFACE AREAS A pyramid is a 3-D shape with a base and triangular faces A square-based pyramid has a square base and four triangular faces The top point of the pyramid is called its apex 04 apex face base A net is a flat pattern that is folded to make a 3-D shape The net of a square-based pyramid has four triangles the faces and a square the base joined together They can be joined in different ways One example is shown at right You can find the area of a rectangle by multiplying its length by its width So to find the area of a square multiply the length by itself To find the area of a triangle multiply the length of the base shown as b by the perpendicular height shown as h and divide the answer in half This can be shown as the formula area of a triangle ½b h To find the surface area of a pyramid find the area of each part of the net and add them together r a l u c i d n e p r e p h t h g i e h length of base b