This applet allows users to study the nature of triangles and their area.

How Do I Run This Applet?

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Object of the activity

The object of this activity is to improve your understanding of calculating the area of a triangle and improve the skills needed for calculating this area. You may use any appropriate method for finding the area of a triangle, although we suggest using Heron's formula. In using the formula, you will need to round in obtaining your answer. Round to 3 decimals places and then enter your answer to the nearest tenth. Once the area is entered, the applet will respond with "Correct," or "Incorrect. Try Again."

There is more than one way, of course, to find the area of a triangle. Clicking the Give Hint button will draw a rectangle around the given triangle showing you could calculate the area of the resulting rectangle and then subtract the area of the other newly formed triangles to obtain the area.

The user can then input the calculated area into the box and check the answer by clicking the Check Answer button.

The program will then tell the user if their answer is correct or incorrect. If the answer is incorrect, redo the calculations to check for errors or try a different method for finding the area.

When the user has found the correct area of a given triangle, a new triangle may be obtained by clicking on the New Traingle button.

As the user becomes more skilled at calculating the area of a triangle, more difficult problems can be obtained using the pull-down menu at the top of the applet. Users may choose from easy, medium, or hard problems.