A geometry problem by edil tizon

The area of the shaded region is the area of the rectangle minus the sum of the areas of the two triangles.

$= lb - \frac {1}{2} b_{1} h - \frac {1}{2} b_{2} h$

$= (6)(16) - \frac {1}{2} h ( b_{1} + b_{2} )$

$= (6)(16) - \frac {1}{2}(6)(16)$

$= \frac {1}{2} (6)(16) = \boxed {48}$

area of shaded region = area of unshaded region = one half of the area of the rectangle = 0.5 * 16 * 6 = 48 square meters