Area Of Polygons Exploration
The area of any polygon can be found by breaking down the polygon into more basic shapes. Use the applet below to explore this process.
1. What is the area of the octagon on the left (count the boxes)?
2. How can you break this shape into triangles and rectangles to find the area of this shape?
3. Find the area of each rectangle and triangle and add them up to find the total area.
4. Create a formula for finding the area of the regular hexagon to the right by breaking it down into triangles.