CORRECTED COPY

Hi, there--

THE PROBLEM:
You are shopping for a square fence. The area you will fence is 500 square feet. Find out how 
much fence you will need to buy to cover the perimeter.

A SOLUTION:
Let's work backwards here. You are shopping for a fence to go around a square 
with an area of 500 square feet. Because it is a square, each side has the same measure.

Let s be the side length of the square.

The formula for the area of a square is . In your problem, the area is 500 square 
feet, so



This means that the side length is , or .

Now, let's look at the perimeter of the square. All four sides have equal length, so the 
formula for the perimeter is .

Substitute  for s  to give




You need  feet to fence the square. Now if you go to the store and ask for 
 feet of fence, they'll think you're a crazy mathematician. This is a good time 
for an approximate answer. Use a calculator,

 is approximately 

You will need about 89.6 feet of fence to cover the perimeter.

Hope this helps! Email me if you have questions about this.
Mrs.Figgy
math.in.the.vortex@gmail.com