What areas do you need to calculate when finding the area of a prism and a cylinder? Compare the bases and the lateral faces of these figures.
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When we want to find the surface area of a prism or a cylinder, we sum the area of the bases and the area of the lateral faces of the figure.
Surface Area = Base Areas + Lateral Areas
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Surface Area = 2Bases + Perimeter Base * height
The bases of a cylinder are congruent circles while the bases of a prism are congruent polygons. The lateral face of a cylinder is a rectangle as well as the lateral faces of a rectangular prism. When the figure is oblique, the lateral faces can be parallelograms.
