Question

Gideon is painting all sides of a square pyramid-shaped decoration at the top of his fence post. A net of the decoration is shown below.
What is the area that Gideon will paint?

Answer 1

Gideon is painting all sides thus we find the overall area of the square pyramid given in the picture. A square pyramid is a polyhedron that consists of a square and 4 triangles. To solve the area that Gideon will have to paint, we can calculate the area of the square and the area of the triangles then add these two values of area. We proceed as follows:
Area of the square = s^2 where s is the measure of the side
Area of the square = 4^2 = 16 in^2

Area of the triangle= 1/2 bh where b is the base of the triangle and h is height of the triangle
Area of the triangle = 1/2 (4) (5) = 10 in^2
We multiply the area of the triangle to four in order to obtain the total area of the triangles.
Total area of the triangles = 4 x 10 = 40 in^2

We then add the two areas,
Total Area = 16 + 40 = 56 in^2

Thus the total area that Gideon will have to paint for one square pyramid is 56 in^2.