Finding the Area of Parallelograms...and Tennessee

        Today, I learned how to find the area of a parallelogram in class. It's pretty much the same exactly the same as the formula for the area of a square/rectangle. The formula for finding the area of a parallelogram (and a square and a rectangle) is: Area = base times height OR length times width (same thing). The reason that this is, is because a parallelogram is just a rectangle or square with triangles on the sides. After we learned this, we were also asked to find the dimensions of Tennessee and come up with a rough estimate of the state. Why are we doing this, you may ask? Because Tennessee is the one state that most resembles a parallelogram. So to find the dimensions, I Googled it and found that Tennessee is 440 miles long (l) and 120 miles wide (w). After that, I just plugged it into the formula.

                           A = l x w

                           A = 440 x 120

                           A = 52,800 square miles

        In addition to finding the rough estimate, we also had to compare it to the real area of Tennessee. So drumroll please.... The real area of Tennessee is... 42,416 square miles. That's a 10,654 square mile difference, but that's okay, because in reality, Tennessee isn't a perfect parallelogram, so of course, the answer's gonna be off a little.