Question

The shadow of a flagpole is 37 meters long. The angle of elevation from the end of the shadow to the top of the flagpole is 15°. What is the height of the flagpole? Round to the nearest meter.

Answer 1

if you make a drawing, you will see that you have created a right triangle with the angle of elevation opposite the leg that is the height of the flagpole.

The length of the shadow is the other leg, adjacent to the angle of elevation.

Applying the trigonometric identity for right triangles:

tan(angle of elevation) = opposite/adjacent -->

tan(15) = height/37 -->

height = 37 * tan(15) = 9.9