Imagine you have a box of cereal.  The amount of cardboard needed to make the box would describe the surface area of the box, but the amount of cereal that could fit inside would describe the volume.  In this chapter, we will be studying how to determine the volume of a 3d shape.

You can imagine having a set of 1cm cubes.  If you build a shape that has a single layer of 4 shapes, you can make any one of the 7 tetris shapes.  The single layer still only has 4 blocks in it.  Imagine stacking an identical shape on top so that it is 2 layers tall.  You now have used 8 blocks.  If you stack it 10 layers tall, you can find that it has used 40 blocks.  This is how we determine the volume of a shape.  More information about volume can be found in our notes.

Do you know that little children in their early stages of development have difficulty working with more than 1 measurement at a time?  This was described by the psychologist Piaget when he developed some of his theories around conservation; Typical child demonstrates Conservation

Resources

• Notes

Assignment

• p250 #3, 5, 7, 8-15 *16, 18