Unit 1, Lesson 15
More Nets, More Surface Area
Grade 6
Preparation
Lesson Narrative
This lesson further develops students’ ability to visualize the relationship between nets and polyhedra and their capacity to reason about surface area.
Previously, students identified polygons that make up the faces of a polyhedron and arranged them into a net. They also assembled given nets into polyhedra. In this lesson, students reason about the nets of polyhedra with less scaffolding. They practice mentally unfolding three-dimensional shapes, drawing two-dimensional nets, and using nets to calculate surface area.
As students coordinate edge lengths and arrangements of polygons in drawings of three-dimensional figures to those in the corresponding nets, they practice reasoning concretely and abstractly (MP2).
In an optional activity, students practice visualizing prisms that could be assembled from given nets (shown without a grid) and then compare and contrast their surface areas and volumes.
- Draw and assemble a net for the prism or pyramid shown in a given drawing.
- Interpret (using words and other representations) two-dimensional representations of prisms and pyramids.
- Use a net without gridlines to calculate the surface area of a prism or pyramid and explain (in writing) the solution method.
Let’s draw nets and find the surface area of polyhedra.
Required Materials
Required Preparation
Copy and cut the blackline master. Make one copy for every 9 students, so that each student gets one drawing of a polyhedron. Consider assignments of polyhedra in advance.