Learning Targets
Here are some drawings of a school bus, a quarter, and the subway lines around Boston, Massachusetts. The first three drawings are scale drawings of these objects.
The next three drawings are not scale drawings of these objects.
Scale drawings are two-dimensional representations of actual objects or places. Floor plans and maps are some examples of scale drawings. On a scale drawing:
Sometimes the scale is shown as a segment on the drawing itself. For example, here is a scale drawing of a stop sign with a line segment that represents 25 cm of actual length.
The width of the octagon in the drawing is about three times the length of this segment, so the actual width of the sign is about 3⋅25, or 75 cm.
Because a scale drawing is two-dimensional, some aspects of the three-dimensional object are not represented. For example, this scale drawing does not show the thickness of the stop sign.
A scale drawing may not show every detail of the actual object; however, the features that are shown correspond to the actual object and follow the specified scale.
scale drawing: A scale drawing of an object is a drawing in which all lengths in the drawing correspond to lengths in the object by the same scale. The scale tells you how the lengths correspond; for example, a scale of "1 inch to 2 feet" means that 1 inch in the drawing represents 2 feet in the object.
Your teacher will give you a scale drawing of a basketball court. The drawing does not have any measurements labeled, but it says that 1 centimeter represents 2 meters.
1 cm represents 2 m
Here is a scale drawing of some of the world’s tallest structures.
Explore the actual locations locations using Google Maps.