Question

Pedro wanted to know the height of the school gym. He measured the shadow from the gym on the

ground to be 40 feet and measured his own shadow to be 10 feet. Pedro is 5.5 feet tall. Find the height
of the gym. Show all work necessary to justify your answer.

Answer 1

Answer: We can use the relationship between the height of an object, the length of its shadow, and the length of the shadow of a person known to be a certain height, to find the height of the gym.

The relationship can be represented using the following proportion:

gym height / shadow of gym = Pedro's height / shadow of Pedro

We can set up the proportion and cross-multiply to get:

gym height * shadow of Pedro = Pedro's height * shadow of gym

We know that Pedro's height is 5.5 feet and his shadow is 10 feet, and the shadow of the gym is 40 feet, so we can substitute these values into the proportion and solve for the gym height:

gym height * 10 = 5.5 * 40

gym height = (5.5 * 40) / 10

gym height = 22 feet

So, the height of the school gym is 22 feet.

Explanation: