Converting units of area is one area in Maths that students make lots of mistakes as they haven't thought about the conversion factors.

When we are converting from, for example, metres into cm, we know that 1m = 100cm. This leads to the misconception that 1m² = 100cm². In reality, 1m² = 10000 cm².

???????

Let's look at what's happening here. If we look at a square that measures 1m on each side.

Looking at the areas of these two identical squares, we can say that

1 m x 1 m = 100 cm x 100 cm

1m² = 10000 cm²

Is there a trick?

In a way, yes, All you need to do for an area conversion is to find the conversion if it wa a length and then square it to get the area conversion.

Example 1: Convert 1.4m² into cm².

We know that for a length 1m = 100cm

So for an area 1m² = 10000cm².

1.4m² = 1.4 x 10000 = 14000 cm².

Example 2: Convert 350m² into km².

We know that for a length 1km = 1000m

So for an area 1km² = 1000000m².

350m² = 350 ÷ 1000000 = 0.00035 m².