Polygons

Date 25.06.2021 Date of submission 28.06.2021

Learning outcomes
 All learners can evaluate the different formulae used to find the Interior
angles, exterior angles and number of sides of various Polygons.

What are Polygons?

A polygon is any shape made up of straight lines that can be drawn on a flat surface,
like a piece of paper. Such shapes include squares, rectangles, triangles and
pentagons but not circles or any other shape that includes a curve.

Understanding shapes is important in mathematics. You will certainly be required to

learn about shapes at school but understanding the properties of shapes has many
practical applications in professional and real-life situations too.

Many professionals need to understand the properties of shapes, including engineers,

architects, artists, real-estate agents, farmers and construction workers.

Types of Polygons

There are two main types of polygon - regular and irregular.

A regular polygon has equal length sides with equal angles between each side. Any
other polygon is an irregular polygon, which by definition has unequal length sides
and unequal angles between sides.

Circles and shapes that include curves are not polygons - a polygon, by definition, is
made up of straight lines.
Angles between Sides
The angles between the sides of shapes are important when defining and working
with polygons.

There is a useful formula for finding out the total (or sum) of internal angles for any
polygon, that is:

(number of sides - 2) × 180°

Example:

For a pentagon (a five-sided shape) the calculation would be:

5-2=3

3 × 180 = 540°.

The sum of internal angles for any pentagon is 540°.

Furthermore, if the shape is a regular polygon (all angles and length of sides are
equal) then you can simply divide the sum of the internal angles by the number of
sides to find each internal angle.

540 ÷ 5 = 108°.

A regular pentagon therefore has five angles each equal to 108°.

Important Formulae
Hence, we know that

1. Sum of interior angles of polygon = (n-2) x 180

2. Size of each interior angle = sum of interior angles

n (Where n = number of sides)

 3. Interior Angle + Exterior Angle = 180 ( As we already know)
4. Sum of Exterior Angles = the Exterior Angles of All polygons add up to 360

Hence you can use this property of the polygons to find the size of each exteriors
angle

5. Each exterior angle = 360__________

Number of sides

6. Number of Sides = 360__________

Each exterior Angle

Activity 1
 Turn to page 35, use the explanation on zoom and the guidelines above to copy
and complete each table in Exercise 3.1B

Activity 2
 Turn to page 36, read about angles in parallel lines, apply the explanation from
your zoom lesson and solve all the questions in Exercise 3.1C
 You must draw all the shapes in your workbooks.

Activity 3
Solve the following the questions using the formulae. You can draw the shapes
where needed.
a. A pentagon has 4 equal angles and the fifth angle is 100º. Find the measure
of the each equal angle.
b. The five angles of a pentagon are as follows x, x, 2x, 2x and 3x. Find the
value of x.
c. Calculate the number of sides of a regular polygon whose interior angle
are each 156º
 d. Calculate the number of sides of a regular polygon whose interior angles
are 150º each.
e. Calculate the number of sides of a regular polygon whose exterior angles
are each 40º

Plenary
 Use all the formulae explained in class and in the worksheet to answer
all the tasks.
 Please do get in touch if you have any other doubts
 Please submit your work by 28.06.2021