Surface Area Lab: Cubes and Rectangular Prisms

Use these worksheets to practice finding surface area from nets, rectangular prisms, cubes, and decimal dimensions.

Watch these lessons to learn multiple strategies for finding the surface area of rectangular prisms and cubes using nets, formulas, and shortcuts.

Choose either a cube or a rectangular prism, then select whole number, decimal, fraction, or mixed-number dimensions.

Switch between 3D View and Net View to connect the solid figure with the flat surfaces that cover it.

Find the matching face areas, enter those values into the surface area formula, and use the feedback to check your work.

Surface area is a two-dimensional measurement, even when the object is shown as a three-dimensional solid.

Rectangular prisms have three pairs of matching faces: top and bottom, left and right, and front and back.

Cubes are special rectangular prisms because all six faces are congruent squares.

Surface Area: The total area of all the outside faces of a three-dimensional figure.

Net: A flat pattern that can be folded to make a three-dimensional solid.

Rectangular Prism: A solid figure with six rectangular faces.

Cube: A rectangular prism with six congruent square faces.

Geometric Solid: A three-dimensional figure that has length, width, and height.

Face: A flat surface of a three-dimensional figure.

Plane: A flat surface that extends in two dimensions.

Dimension: A measurement such as length, width, or height.

Congruent: Having the same size and shape.

Square Units: Units used to measure area, such as square inches or square centimeters.

Parallel Planes: Flat surfaces that never intersect and stay the same distance apart.

Vertex: A corner point where edges of a solid meet.

For a rectangular prism, find the areas of the three pairs of matching faces and add them together.

\(SA = 2LW + 2LH + 2WH\)

For a cube, all six faces are congruent squares, so find one face area and multiply by six.

\(SA = 6s^2\)

Surface area is measured in square units because each face is a flat area measurement.

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