Lesson 6

In the previous lesson, students created multiple scale drawings using different scales. In this lesson, students are given a scale drawing and asked to recreate it at a different scale. Two possible strategies to produce these drawings are:

• Calculating the actual lengths and then using the new scale to find lengths on the new scale drawing.
• Relating the two scales and calculating the lengths for the new scale drawing using corresponding lengths on the given drawing.

In addition, students previously saw that the area of a scaled copy can be found by multiplying the area of the original figure by \((\text{scale factor})^2\). In this lesson, they extend this work in two ways:

• They compare areas of scale drawings of the same object with different scales.
• They examine how much area, on the actual object, is represented by 1 square centimeter on the scale drawing. For example, if the scale is 1 cm to 50 m, then 1 cm² represents \(50 \boldcdot 50\), or 2,500 m².

Throughout this lesson, students observe and explain structure (MP7), both when they reproduce a scale drawing at a different scale and when they study how the area of a scale drawing depends on the scale. 

The lesson narrative references a previous lesson which is not included in the sequence for IM 6–8 Math Accelerated. As such, this lesson is the start of students working with area and scaled copies.

Print and cut the scales for the Same Plot, Different Drawings activity from the blackline master (1 set of scales per group of 5–6 students).

Ensure students have access to their geometry toolkits, especially centimeter rulers.