Building Prisms in grade 9

We had the task of building rectangular prisms wih a volume of 300 cubic centimeters.

We made plans and determined dimensions.  Some chose square bases, and others did not.
Some cut out all their pieces and then taped them…

Others drew the entire net and then folded up the prism.

It took teamwork to get everything assembled.

We calculate the surface area of our prisms.  It is pretty neat that we can have the same volume but different surface areas depending on the dimensions we chose.

The cube, with all sides equal, has the minimum area.  The farther apart the dimensions are, the larger the surface area.  We could make a very long snake like box that is 3m by 1cm by 1cm and it would have an even bigger area than the prisms shown here.