23. Lois built a rectangular flower bed. She used four boards for the border of the flower bed. Two of the boards were 4 feet long. The other boards were 8 feet long. a. What was the area of the flower bed using these boards? b. She decided to cut each board in half to make two square flower beds. What was the area of each square flower bed? c. Did one or two flower beds give Lois more total area to plant flowers? Explain your reasoning.

What part of these problems don't you understand?

I am unable to make the figure (with both boards) to begin with...

a. To find the area of the rectangular flower bed using these boards, we need to determine the length and width.

Given that two of the boards are 4 feet long and the other two boards are 8 feet long, we can assume that the longer boards are for the length and the shorter boards are for the width of the flower bed.

So, the length of the flower bed would be 8 feet and the width of the flower bed would be 4 feet.

To find the area of a rectangle, we multiply the length by the width. Therefore, the area of the flower bed would be 8 feet * 4 feet = 32 square feet.

b. After cutting each board in half, we would have four square boards.

Given that the original boards were 4 feet and 8 feet long, each square board would now be 2 feet and 4 feet in length.

To find the area of a square, we multiply the length of one side by itself. Therefore, the area of each square flower bed would be:

- For the 2 feet length board: 2 feet * 2 feet = 4 square feet.
- For the 4 feet length board: 4 feet * 4 feet = 16 square feet.

c. Now, we need to determine if one or two flower beds give Lois more total area to plant flowers.

In the rectangular flower bed (part a), the total area was 32 square feet.

If we have two square flower beds, one with an area of 4 square feet and the other with an area of 16 square feet, their total area would be 4 square feet + 16 square feet = 20 square feet.

Comparing the total areas, we see that the rectangular flower bed has a greater area (32 square feet) than the combined total area of the two square flower beds (20 square feet).

Therefore, the rectangular flower bed provides Lois with more total area to plant flowers.