Answer:
The angle of depression is the angle between the horizontal and the line of sight from the observer to the object being observed. In this case, the observer is at the top of the tower and the object being observed is the sun.
Let θ be the angle of depression that the sun makes with the ground. Then we can use the tangent function to find θ:
tan θ = opposite / adjacent
In this case, the opposite side is the height of the tower (187 feet) and the adjacent side is the length of the shadow (278 feet). So we have:
tan θ = 187 / 278
Using a calculator, we find that:
θ ≈ 35.9 degrees
Therefore, the angle of depression that the sun makes with the ground to create the shadow is approximately 35.9 degrees.