How Tall is the Atrium?

Welcome to our atrium.

Today the challenge for my colleague’s grade 12 college math class is to determine how tall the ceiling is in the blue section of the atrium.

We started off estimating and justifying our estimates. Guesses ranged from 20-50 feet. Ideas were justified by imagining a 7 foot basement stacked up on itself, or by estimating the height of the classroom using the door frame height or a person’s height, then doubling it since the atrium covers 2 storeys of the school. Interestingly enough the students preferred to estimate in feet, but defaulted to measuring in metric to do our data collection.

To collect data we stood at the back of the atrium, just at where the overhang ended. We marked our position, then measured with the clinometer. We walked forward by a measured distance, then repeated the process. These 3 measurements, along with the height of the clinometer operator’s eyes were enough to allow the calculation of the atrium height.

The calculations include some supplementary angle calculations, and sine law and sine. We got part way through the calculations and there are some pinky swears given that the calculations will be finished for tomorrow. We’ll see. I’m quite curious to see what the height is, and how that compares to the school height that my grade 10s calculated.