Modeling Rainwater Harvesting?

📌 CONCEPT: Rainwater harvesting can be modeled using the concept of volume of a rectangular prism, where the volume of water collected is the product of the area of the roof and the height of the water collected.

📐 RULE / FORMULA: The formula for the volume of a rectangular prism is V = lwh, where V is the volume, l is the length, w is the width, and h is the height of the water collected.

💡 WORKED EXAMPLE: Given that the roof of the community center measures 20 meters by 15 meters and the uniform rainfall rate is 1 mm/hour, the volume of rainwater collected per hour can be calculated as V = (20)(15)(1) = 300 cubic meters.

⚠️ COMMON MISTAKE: Students often forget to convert the rainfall rate from mm to meters, leading to an incorrect calculation of the volume of water collected.