Question

Mr. Morris is going to save money and replace his sailboat's mainsail himself. He must determine the area of the mainsail in order to buy the correct amount of material. Calculate the area of the parallelogram to determine how much material should be purchased. Be sure to explain how to decompose this shape into rectangles and triangles. Describe their dimensions and show your work.

Answer 1

The decomposition of the parallelogram into triangle then into a rectangle is shown below 

The measurement we need to calculate the area is the length and the width of the rectangle; 15 feet and 10 feet

Area = 15 × 10 = 150 feet²