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Four quadrants are drawn centred at the vertices of a square . Find the area of the central region bounded by the four arcs.
If I print this page which shape will require the more yellow ink?
A farmer has a field which is the shape of a trapezium as illustrated below. To increase his profits he wishes to grow two different crops. To do this he would like to divide the field into two. . . .
A trapezium is divided into four triangles by its diagonals. Suppose the two triangles containing the parallel sides have areas a and b, what is the area of the trapezium?
Draw two circles, each of radius 1 unit, so that each circle goes through the centre of the other one. What is the area of the overlap?
Can you find a general rule for finding the areas of equilateral triangles drawn on an isometric grid?
Can you choose your units so that a cube has the same numerical value for it volume, surface area and total edge length?
Investigate the properties of quadrilaterals which can be drawn with a circle just touching each side and another circle just touching each vertex.
Manufacturers need to minimise the amount of material used to make their product. What is the best cross-section for a gutter?
Prove that the area of a quadrilateral is given by half the product of the lengths of the diagonals multiplied by the sine of the angle between the diagonals.
If the base of a rectangle is increased by 10% and the area is unchanged, by what percentage (exactly) is the width decreased by ?
Given a square ABCD of sides 10 cm, and using the corners as centres, construct four quadrants with radius 10 cm each inside the square. The four arcs intersect at P, Q, R and S. Find the. . . .
Straight lines are drawn from each corner of a square to the mid points of the opposite sides. Express the area of the octagon that is formed at the centre as a fraction of the area of the square.
A square of area 40 square cms is inscribed in a semicircle. Find the area of the square that could be inscribed in a circle of the same radius.
How can you change the area of a shape but keep its perimeter the same? How can you change the perimeter but keep the area the same?
I'm thinking of a rectangle with an area of 24. What could its perimeter be?
Three rods of different lengths form three sides of an enclosure with right angles between them. What arrangement maximises the area
In this problem we are faced with an apparently easy area problem, but it has gone horribly wrong! What happened?
What happens to the area and volume of 2D and 3D shapes when you enlarge them?
Can you find rectangles where the value of the area is the same as the value of the perimeter?
In the four examples below identical squares of side one unit contain some circles shaded blue. In which of the four examples is the shaded area greatest?
Take a sheet of A4 paper and place it in landscape format. Fold up the bottom left corner to the top so the double thickness is a 45,45,90 triangle. Fold up the bottom right corner to meet the. . . .
Bluey-green, white and transparent squares with a few odd bits of shapes around the perimeter. But, how many squares are there of each type in the complete circle? Study the picture and make. . . .
A circle with the radius of 2.2 centimetres is drawn touching the sides of a square. What area of the square is NOT covered by the circle?
A circle is inscribed in a triangle which has side lengths of 8, 15 and 17 cm. What is the radius of the circle?
At the corner of the cube circular arcs are drawn and the area enclosed shaded. What fraction of the surface area of the cube is shaded? Try working out the answer without recourse to pencil and. . . .
What fractions of the largest circle are the two shaded regions?
How have "Warmsnug" arrived at the prices shown on their windows? Which window has been given an incorrect price?
Which is a better fit, a square peg in a round hole or a round peg in a square hole?
Which has the greatest area, a circle or a square inscribed in an isosceles, right angle triangle?
The diagonals of a trapezium divide it into four parts. Can you create a trapezium where three of those parts are equal in area?
Polygons drawn on square dotty paper have dots on their perimeter (p) and often internal (i) ones as well. Find a relationship between p, i and the area of the polygons.
Investigate the different ways of cutting a perfectly circular pie into equal pieces using exactly 3 cuts. The cuts have to be along chords of the circle (which might be diameters).
Six circular discs are packed in different-shaped boxes so that the discs touch their neighbours and the sides of the box. Can you put the boxes in order according to the areas of their bases?
Can you maximise the area available to a grazing goat?
An activity for high-attaining learners which involves making a new cylinder from a cardboard tube.
It's easy to work out the areas of most squares that we meet, but what if they were tilted?
Follow the instructions and you can take a rectangle, cut it into 4 pieces, discard two small triangles, put together the remaining two pieces and end up with a rectangle the same size. Try it!
Take any rectangle ABCD such that AB > BC. The point P is on AB and Q is on CD. Show that there is exactly one position of P and Q such that APCQ is a rhombus.
The area of a square inscribed in a circle with a unit radius is, satisfyingly, 2. What is the area of a regular hexagon inscribed in a circle with a unit radius?
Can you find the area of a parallelogram defined by two vectors?
Can you draw the height-time chart as this complicated vessel fills with water?
Can you rank these sets of quantities in order, from smallest to largest? Can you provide convincing evidence for your rankings?
Explore one of these five pictures.
Analyse these beautiful biological images and attempt to rank them in size order.
A follow-up activity to Tiles in the Garden.
Cut off three right angled isosceles triangles to produce a pentagon. With two lines, cut the pentagon into three parts which can be rearranged into another square.
A white cross is placed symmetrically in a red disc with the central square of side length sqrt 2 and the arms of the cross of length 1 unit. What is the area of the disc still showing?
Have a go at creating these images based on circles. What do you notice about the areas of the different sections?
A task which depends on members of the group noticing the needs of others and responding.