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Copyright © 3P Learning – These resources have been created in partnership with Dr. Marian Small.
For more information visit
www.mathletics.comThree Prisms
Questions to facilitate the learning
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Did the bases of the three prisms have to be the same? Could they be?
•
Could any of the heights be more than 20 units? Why or why not?
•
Could any of the prisms be more than half the total volume? Why or why not?
Scaffolding the learning
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What information do you need to figure out the volume of a prism?
•
Is it possible for prisms with different heights to have about the same volumes? How could that happen?
Extending the learning
Students might create three prisms where the middle volume is double the first, the third volume is double
the second and the combined volume is 84 cubic units.
What’s the point of this task?
At this level, students become familiar with determining the volume of a prism using information about its
height and the area of its base. Rather than giving the volume of a single prism, it is more interesting to
have a total volume for three prisms. Students are asked to use a tall, medium and short prism to require
them to vary heights; they can choose to vary the areas of the bases or not. For example, if the area of the
base were 4 square units, there could be three prisms with a base of 4 square units, one with a height of
2 units, one with a height of 6 units and one with a height of 12 units.
Or students could use a 1 x 1 x 2 prism (with a height of 2), a 2 x 5 x 3 prism (with a height of 5) and a 24
(with a height of 24) x 1 x 2 prism.
Measurement