Richard wants to put a fence around his backyard. does he need to find the area or the perimeter of his backyard? what measurements does he need to figure out how much fence he needs?

Hey there!

Area- defines the amount of space inside a boundary
Perimeter- defines the distance around this boundary

Considering we're looking for fencing that goes around the backyard, not in it, it seems reasonable that we would use perimeter. Remember, we're not covering the entire backyard with fencing- in which case we would need to know the area. In this case, we're just looking at the distance around the backyard.

Richard would probably need the distance in whatever units he's using- meters, yards, feet- depending on how big his yard is. A common misconception here is that you would use square feet. Remember that square feet is for area, as you write units squared after you do any area calculation.

Hope this helps!

Documentation and time management