Question

Jelani filled an aquarium with blocks that were each one cubic foot in size. He filled the bottom layer of the aquarium with 21 blocks. He then stacked three more blocks on top of the bottom layer. The partially filled aquarium is shown below. What is the total volume, in cubic feet, of the aquarium?

Answer 1

The total volume of the aquarium is;

`84\text{ }ft^3`

Step-by-step explanation:

Given the figure in the attached image.

The bottom of the aquarium was covered with 21 blocks with 1 cubic foot each.

Each face of the cubic blocks will have a surface area of 1 square foot each.

So, the surface area of the base of the aquarium will be;

`\begin{gathered} A=21*1ft^2 \\ A=21\text{ }ft^2 \end{gathered}`

Recall that volume equals base area multiply by the height of the aquarium;

`V=A* h`

From the figure, the height of the aquarium requires 4 blocks, which makes the height 4 ft;

`h=4ft`

So, we can now substitute the values of the height and the base area to calculate the total volume of the aquarium;

`\begin{gathered} V=A* h \\ V=21ft^2*4ft \\ V=84\text{ }ft^3 \end{gathered}`

Therefore, the total volume of the aquarium is;

`84\text{ }ft^3`