Virginia SOL 7.MG.1.c
The Standard
Determine if a problem in context, involving a rectangular prism or right cylinder, represents the application of volume or surface area.
Virginia Standards of Learning for Mathematics · The student will investigate and determine the volume formula for right cylinders and the surface area formulas for rectangular prisms and right cylinders and apply the formulas in context.
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students decide whether a situation asks about space inside a solid or the area covering its outside. They use context clues to choose volume or surface area before calculating.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Students correctly identify whether a situation concerns inside space or outside covering. They explain their choice using details from the context and select cubic or square units.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may choose volume whenever a three-dimensional object appears. They may also confuse covering the outside with filling the inside, especially in packaging problems.
How to Assess It
- Give students four situations: filling a can, wrapping a box, painting a tank, and packing a carton. Have them label each as volume or surface area and underline the clue words.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs a cereal box and soup can, then sort task cards such as fill, wrap, paint, and label by measurement needed.
Ask students to explain why filling a fish tank uses volume while cleaning its glass walls uses surface area.
Play a sorting relay where teams place context cards under volume or surface area and justify one disputed choice.
Compare buying mulch for a raised garden bed with buying wood to build its sides, then identify the measurement needed for each.
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Related Standards
- 5.MG.2.e
Solve problems, including those in context, to estimate and determine the volume of a rectangular prism using concrete objects, diagrams, and formulas when the ...
- 8.MG.2.d
Solve problems in context involving volume of cones and square-based pyramids and the surface area of square-based pyramids.
- 7.MG.1.b
Develop the formulas for determining the surface area of rectangular prisms and right cylinders and solve problems, including those in contextual situations, us...
- 5.MG.2.f
Identify whether the application of the concept of perimeter, area, or volume is appropriate for a given situation.
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