Question

Aunt Patricia has a large farm, which contains a right triangular area where her house and gardens are

located. She also has three square pastures where she keeps her milk cows. Aunt Patricia has written a
will. In the will, she leaves the triangular area with house and garden to a local charity. But she leaves
the three square pastures to her two nieces, Mia and Erika.

The side length of the smallest square pasture is 24 meters, and the area of the middle-size square
pasture is 1,024 square meters.
1. What is the area of the smallest square pasture? _________________________ square meters
Show how you figured it out.

2. What is the side length of the middle-size square pasture? ______________________ meters
Show how you figured it out.

In Aunt Patricia’s will, she gave the large pasture to Mia and the two smallest pastures to Erika.
3. What is the side length of Mia’s square pasture (large pasture)? ____________ meters
What is the total area of Mia’s pasture? ______________________________ square meters
Show how you figured it out.

4. The nieces don’t think the will is fair. Explain to them why, in this case, it is fair. Justify your
explanation with mathematics.
__________________________________________________________________

Answer 1

see below

Explanation:

The smallest size has area b^2

A = s^2

A= b^2 = 24^2 =576 m^2

The middle size has area a^2

1024 = a^2

Take the square root of each side

sqrt(1024) =sqrt(a^2)

32 = a

The side length is 32 m

To find the side length of the largest pasture use the pythagorean theorem

a^2 + b^2 = c^2

32^2 + 24^2= c^2

1024+576 = c^2

1600 = c^2

Taking the square root of each side

sqrt(1600) = sqrt(c^2)

40 = c

The side length is 40 m

The area is 1600 m^2

It is fair since the areas are the same.1600 m^2 = 1600 m^2