Geometry Use groups of 4. Materials: Atlas or map, metric rulers, reference books

Areas of Interest

The shape of the state of Colorado suggests a rectangle. The shape of Tennessee suggests a parallelogram.

Work in pairs. Use what you know about finding the areas of rectangles and parallelograms to estimate the area in square miles of each of these two states. (Use the map's scale to convert measurements in centimeters to miles.) Find the actual areas of Tennessee and Colorado in a reference book. How close were your estimates?