While surveying Overlook Cave, Mike measures the angle of elevation from his line of sight to the top of a rock formation as 22°
. The rock formation is 10 feet away and he is measuring from a point 3 feet above the floor of the cave. To the nearest tenth of a foot, how high is the rock formation?
<em>We can visualize this situation as a triangle and know that the bottom side is </em><em>10</em><em> and the angle of elevation (the angle created by Mike and the ground, looking to the top of a rock). With this information, we can use tangent to solve.</em>
<em>x = the height of the rock formation</em>
tan(22°) = x/10
10 tan(22°) = x
x = ~4.04 feet
<em>We also have to add the </em><em>3 feet</em><em> to it because it is being measured 3 feet above the floor.</em>
