Celina and her sister are painting a sandbox shaped like a rectangular prism. They want to paint only the outsides of the four rectangular sides. How many square feet will be painted?

(not drawn to scale)

4 ft

5 ft

A 18f * t ^ 2

B 20f * t ^ 2

16f * t ^ 2

D 29f * t ^ 2

1 answer

To find the surface area that will be painted, we need to find the area of all four rectangular sides.

The formula for the surface area of a rectangular prism is given by:

Surface Area = 2lw + 2lh + 2wh

In this problem, we have a sandbox shaped like a rectangular prism. Let's assume that the length (l) is 4 ft, the width (w) is 5 ft, and the height (h) is unknown.

Since we are only painting the outside of the four rectangular sides, we can exclude the top and bottom of the sandbox from the calculation. This means we only need to consider the length (4 ft) and width (5 ft) when calculating the surface area.

Surface Area = 2lw + 2lh

Substituting the values we have:

Surface Area = 2(4)(5) + 2(4)(h)
Surface Area = 40 + 8h

The area to be painted is represented by 40 + 8h, where h is the height of the sandbox.

Therefore, the correct answer is D) 29f * t ^ 2, as none of the provided options match the correct representation of the area to be painted.