Students find the volume and surface area of a rectangular box (e.g., a cereal box), and then figure out how to convert that box into a new, cubical box having the same volume as the original. As they construct the new, cube-shaped box from the original box material, students discover that the cubical box has less surface area than the original, and thus, a cube is a more efficient way to package things. Additional activities involved provide valuable experience in problem solving with spatial-visual relationships.

Concepts

engineering, surface area, volume, stem

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Additional Tags

efficient design, integrated teaching and learning program and laboratory, teachengineering, cube, rectangular prism, functions of packaging

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Classroom Considerations

• Knovation Readability Score: 5 (1 low difficulty, 5 high difficulty)