Building a fence around an enclosure, which dimension requires the least amount of fencing?

Question

An rectangular enclosure for a house cat, at minimum, requires 20 square feet. Provide the width and length for 3 different possible configurations of your enclosure (different dimensions but same square footage). Draw a picture that represents a scaled version of the approximate shape of each configuration. For each of the three possible configurations show the calculation of the area using the dimensions you provided to ensure that it is providing the proper square footage AND calculate the perimeter for each, showing your work. (3 points)

What do they mean by dimensions? Different shapes or like 2D 3D? If so for 11x30 type of format, how do I provide 3 different configurations? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

In order to find the square footage of the enclosure, you would just need to multiply length x width. So, to give 3 different configurations, you would need to find 3 different factor pairs of 20. These would be:

5x4, 10x2 or 20x1. All having the same square footage of 20! I hope that helps!