INDIRECT MEASUREMENT PROJECT MR.

YATES GEOMETRY

Shadows
 Sam wants to find the height of the flagpole at his school. Sam is six feet tall
and casts an eight foot shadow. At the same time of day, the flagpole casts a
forty foot shadow.
1. Draw a picture to represent the situation. Your picture should include
triangles. To help you visualize the scene, model it by having one person
act as Sam and another as the flagpole. Where are your shadows—are
they in the air, standing up, or on the ground? Where can you draw the
third side of each triangle?
2. Label the vertices of the triangles.
3. Write a similarity statement (like ∆ ABC ~ ∆ XYZ).
4. Which side represents the flagpole? Which side represents Sam’s
shadow?
5. Set up a proportion, and cross-multiply to solve.
6. How tall is the flagpole?

 The tallest building in Baltimore is the

Legg Mason building, downtown at Pratt
and Light streets. Dominique measures
its shadow with a meter stick one day in
the early afternoon, and finds the shadow
to be 46 meters long. She knows that she
herself is 1.75m tall, and her friend
measures her shadow to be 0.5m. Draw a
diagram and figure out how tall the Legg
Mason building really is.

Mirrors
You can use a mirror to create imaginary similar triangles and indirectly measure
the height of something. Just arrange the mirror on the ground so that you can
see the top of the object whose height you wish to know. To envision this, read
Example 2 on p. 505 in Prentice Hall and do:
 #3 on that same page (p.505). Draw a picture first.
 #22 on p.508; you will need to convert the person’s height to plain feet
(how many inches in a foot?) before proceeding. Draw a picture!
Triangulation (Ships at Sea)
 Two lighthouses are a mile apart. At the first lighthouse, they spot a ship in
the distance sailing toward the shore. The lighthouse keeper wants to know
how far out the ship is, since she will start signaling them to come in if they
are within a 3000 feet of shore. As she cannot measure the distance to the
ship, she decides to rely on similar triangles and measure the angle to the
ship, which is 70° from land, toward the second lighthouse. She calls the
second lighthouse, where they read the ship to be 40° from land toward the
first lighthouse.
1. How many feet apart are the lighthouses?
2. Draw a picture of the situation. Your picture should have one triangle,
connecting both lighthouses and the ship. Label all known side lengths
and all angles.
3. Draw a similar triangle, using the same angles as the situation. Make your
angles accurately or you will be using bad data in your calculations!
4. Measure, in centimeters or inches, the sides of your triangle.
5. BONUS: Measure the straight-on distance to the ‘shore’ from the ship’s
vertex also.
6. Your triangle drawn and measured should be similar to the big triangle of
the situation. Set up a proportion and calculate the distance from the ship
to the lighthouse, in feet.
7. BONUS: calculate also the distance straight to the shore.
8. Should she start signaling yet?

 Later, the keeper measures another ship to be 30° from land toward the
second lighthouse, and the second lighthouse measures 50° away from land
away from the first lighthouse (how many degrees is that then toward the first
lighthouse?—think supplementary angles). Set up a diagram, draw and
measure a similar triangle, and figure out how far the ship is from each light
house. BONUS: how far directly from land?

Grading: There are six challenges here. Each will be graded out of ten points,
five for accurate diagrams and representations, and five for accurate
mathematics and problem-solving. Total project will be graded out of 60.