Fences

Your team has been hired to build a fence. You have only 8 fence posts to use to build the fence. The posts must be put at points on a grid on the back of this page. Posts must be put in holes that are next to each other like this:



Design a fence that encloses the maximum possible area.

Your response should be written on the page provided, entitled

FENCE POST PROBLEM RESPONSE

We will be evaluating:
  1. YOUR UNDERSTANDING: What did you notice about patterns?

  2. STRATEGY: Investigate the problem, checking different post layouts. Make sure each shape uses exactly 8 posts. Draw as many shapes as you can find. Label the first shape "A", the second one "B", and so on. Write the area below each shape. Compare their areas.

  3. COMMUNICATE: Show us your work. Tell us what you were thinking as you tried to solve this problem. How did you pick the best design?

  4. REASONABLE RESULT: Show us how you checked to see if you got the best answer.


You have 30 minutes to complete this task