Unit 1, Lesson 14
Nets and Surface Area
Grade 6
Preparation
Lesson Narrative
This lesson extends students' understanding of polyhedra, their nets, and their surface area.
Students begin by matching polyhedra and their nets. Then they work in groups to assemble two prisms and a pyramid from given nets and use nets to find the surface area of each polyhedron. To support students in reasoning about area, the nets are presented with a grid.
As students calculate surface area and consider how to account for all the faces of a polyhedron, they have opportunities to look for and make use of structure, in both the arrangement and measurements of the polygons that compose the polyhedron (MP7).
- Match polyhedra with their nets and justify (orally) that they match.
- Use a net with gridlines to calculate the surface area of a prism or pyramid and explain (in writing) the solution method.
- Visualize and identify the polyhedron that can be assembled from a given net.
Let’s use nets to find the surface area of polyhedra.
Required Materials
Activity 1
Required Preparation
Prepare physical copies of the nets in the Warm-up, in case needed to support students with visualization. The blackline master contains a larger version of these nets.
Make copies of the nets in the blackline master. Prepare one set of 3 nets (A, B, and C) and provide some glue or tape for each group of 3 students.