IM 6.1.8 Practice: Area of Triangles
To find the area of this right triangle, Diego and Jada used different strategies.
Diego drew a line through the midpoints of the two longer sides, which decomposes the triangle into a trapezoid and a smaller triangle. He then rearranged the two shapes into a parallelogram.
Jada made a copy of the triangle, rotated it, and lined it up against one side of the original triangle so that the two triangles make a parallelogram.
Explain how Diego might use his parallelogram to find the area of the triangle.
Explain how Jada might use her parallelogram to find the area of the triangle.
Find the area of the triangle below. Explain or show your reasoning.
Find the area of the triangle below. Explain or show your reasoning.
Which of the three triangles has the greatest area? Show your reasoning. If you get stuck, try using what you know about the area of parallelograms.
Which of the three triangles has the greatest area?