Thread: geometry problem

A rectangular city block measures 300’ by 400’, including a 4-foot wide sidewalk
which surrounds the block. After a blizzard uniformly dumped 15” of snow, what is
the total number of cubic feet of snow that needs to be cleared from the side walk
surrounding this city block?

Draw the rectangular area. Label the sides.

Draw an inner rectangular area, cutting off the area of the surrounding sidewalk. Do the subtraction, and label the sides of this smaller rectangle.

Find the area of each rectangle. Subtract the smaller from the larger to get the area of just the walkway.

Multiply the surface area by the height to get the volume. Make sure you have everything in the same units (feet, probably).