Why use this resource?
This is a really interesting problem for challenging students to visualise and to work with three dimensions as well as two. To find the correct solution students will need to think about the net of the cube and the possible routes before calculating the different distances between the two points depending on the route they take.
Possible approaches
This problem could be worked on individually or in small groups.
Possible support
The suggestions are very helpful in supporting students at different levels.
Possible extension
In Spider and the fly (Part 2) students are asked to generalise this problem for any height.
