AreaofaRightTriangle
ByJohnBrooks,M.A.
YoucanfindJohnonVeditzathttps://veditz.org/john---brooks
YoucanfindJohn’sASLVideolessononAreaofaRightTriangle
at:https://support.veditz.org/hc/en-us/articles/220442327
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Hello! Welcome to this video! In this video we will address the
question…?“HowdoIfindtheareaofarighttriangle?”
Looking at the grid, we have a blue triangle. Let’s go over what does a
righttrianglemean?
Hereweseeasmallblacksquare.Thismeans…Itisarighttrianglewith
one90degreeangle.Nowweneedtofindtheareaofthisrighttriangle.
Wehaveanexamplehere.
Nowwehaveincludedagridwithsquares…Thisisforthepurpose of
findingarea.Eachrighttrianglehaswhat’scalledabase.Thenwealso
haveheight.
We will count the number of squares on both sides. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. So
nowwewillput“6”onthebasesideofthetriangle.
Nowweneedtofindtheheight.1,2,3,4,5.Ok,perfect!Nowwehave
bothbaseandheight.Wecanusethatinformationwithamathformula.
©2016Veditz.organdJohnBrooks
Inthisexample,6willbeourbaseor“a”.5willbeourheightor“b”.We
canplugthesevaluesintothegivenformula.
Theareaofarighttriangleequals…One---halftimes“a”(6)times“b”
(5) Why do we have one---half? Because the triangle is not fully
coveringthearea.
To demonstrate this, we will draw two lines to make a rectangle. Now
weseethetrianglecoversone---halfofthearea.
Ifweweretoflipthetriangleover…Itwouldcoverthesamesizeofarea
ontheotherside.Thatiswherewegetone---half.
Solet’sgoaheadandsolvebypluggingthenumberswehave.Herewe
haveone---halftimes6,times5.Theproductof6and5is30.
One---half of 30, or 30 divided by 2. Our final answer would be… 15.
Nowdoweleave15asis?No.
Wehavetoaddunitswearemeasuring.Anytimewecalculatearea…We
must include the unit we are measuring. In this case, we counted the
numberofsquares.Sowewilluse“sq”forthegridsquares.
Nowyouhaveanideaofhowtofindareaofarighttriangle.
Thankyouforwatching!
©2016Veditz.organdJohnBrooks