Solving Multi-Step Equations – Group Activity
Objective: To find out how long a rectangular fence will be using a certain amount of fencing material
Materials: You need a pencil and three different colored pencils to do this problem
Problem: You have just planted a new garden in your yard and it’s beautiful!! But your crazy dog keeps
stepping on all of your freshly planted vegetables.
You decide to build a rectangular fence around the garden. One side of your garden is already up against the
house, which is 12-ft long. You go to Home Depot and buy 44 ft of fencing to build the other three sides. How
long with the rectangle be if the width is 12 ft?
1. With your pencil, draw a diagram for your rectangular fence in the space provided:
2. With your first colored pencil, circle the length of your rectangular fence in the problem. With that same
color, label the length of your fence in your diagram.
3. With your second colored pencil circle the total amount of fencing that you will use to build the fence.
4. With your third colored pencil, underline the sentence that asks the question you are trying to answer in
the problem.
5. With your third colored pencil, label the width of your rectangular fence in your diagram (you aren’t
given a width in the problem, so what do you think you could use to represent your unknown width in
the diagram?)
6. Write an expression using the length and width of your rectangle that represents the total amount of
fencing you have around the rectangle.
7. What is the total amount of fencing that you bought?
8. Under “Solution”, set your answers from #6 and #7 equal to each other. Why would you set these equal
to each other?
9. Solve your equation to find the width of the fence!
DIAGRAM
SOLUTION
Now try this one on your own!!!
A carpenter is building a rectangular fence for a playground. One side of the playground is the wall of a
building 70 ft wide. He plans to use 340 ft of fencing material. What is the length of the playground if the width
is 70 ft?
DIAGRAM
SOLUTION