The document discusses methods for calculating the volume of irregular shapes using survey data. It describes the trapezoidal rule and prismoidal formula. The trapezoidal rule uses the average of the start and end areas plus the sum of all intermediate areas. The prismoidal formula weights end areas higher and alternating interior areas differently. An example calculation applies both methods to survey offset data to compute the volume. Students are assigned to use various area calculation methods with additional offset data and compute the volume using trapezoidal and prismoidal formulas.