To find the area of a <em>rectangle</em>, we multiply its length by its width. A square is a special case of a rectangle where all of the sides have the same length, so what we're really doing is taking the side length and multiplying it by itself. Fittingly, we call the process of multiplying a number by itself <em>squaring </em>that number. For example, "3 squared," - written as 3² - gives us 3 x 3 = 9, 4² gives us 4 x 4 = 16, and hopefully you get the idea from there.
Here, a square with a side length of 6.25 feet would have any area of (6.25)² <em>square feet</em> (because area takes up <em>space, </em>we can't measure it with length alone - we need to use something else that takes up space, and squares are the simplest type of shape for the job).
Doing the calculation, we find that this is (6.25)(6.25) = 39.025 square feet.
