Exercise 9 Page 778

The surface area of a triangular prism is the sum of the areas of the two triangular bases and the three rectangular faces. Let's calculate the area of the triangular bases and the area of the rectangular faces one at a time. Then we can add them together.

Triangular Bases

The bases have a length of $8$ inches and a height of $6$ inches. The area of a triangle is half the product of a length and the height. Let's use this fact to find the area of a single base of our prism.