The rectangle shows the outline of a campsite in a national forest. Anna makes a scale drawing of the campsite in which the longer side measures 1 m. What is the area of the scale drawing in square meters?

Answer 1

If the longer side of the campsite in the scale drawing measures 1 meter, we need to determine the length of the shorter side in the scale drawing in order to calculate the area.

Let's say the actual dimensions of the campsite are L meters by W meters. Since the longer side in the scale drawing is represented as 1 meter, we can set up a proportion:
1 meter (scale drawing length) / L meters (actual length) = 1 (scale factor)

Cross multiplying, we get:
1 * L = 1 * 1
L = 1 meter

This means in the scale drawing, the length of the longer side is 1 meter and the width is W meters. Since the scale drawing is proportional to the actual dimensions, we can set up the following relationship:
1m * Wm = 1m * Wm (scale drawing area) = L meters * W meters (actual area)

Therefore, the area of the scale drawing in square meters is 1 square meter.