Volume vs. Area
How does area compare to volume?
Goal:
Goal:
Here are two objects—a checkerboard, which is two-dimensional, and a tissue box, which is three-dimensional. The checkerboard is flat. It has no depth or space to hold anything inside of it, which means it does not have a measurable volume. On the other hand, the tissue box has space within it to hold something, so it has a measurable volume.
The checkerboard does not have volume, but it has area. You have heard of area before. Think of everything you know about area. Ask yourself, “How is area similar to volume, and how is it different?”
There is one major difference: Area has two dimensions, while volume has three.
When we looked at the checkerboard and the tissue box, we decided that the tissue box had volume, but the checkerboard did not. However, the checkerboard still has a measurable area. Do you remember what area is? How is area similar to volume?
Volume and area are similar because they both cover an amount of space. However, area is the amount of space that a 2-dimensional object covers. When we studied area, we learned that you can find the area of a 2D object by counting the number of unit-squares inside the figure or by multiplying the length by the width.
What is the area of this rectangle?
Find the area of the rectangle, then click the picture of Marla to see how she thought about this.