Question

PLEASE HELP ASAP

1. As you learned in your biology courses, trees are a major source of oxygen. Then absorb CO2 and emit oxygen. A major cause of climate change is that there aren't enough trees on Earth to absorb all of the CO₂ generated by humans. In the first five minutes of flight, a commercial airliner burns (turns into CO₂) as much oxygen as 44,000 acres of forest produce in one day. Suppose a major airport, such as O'Hare, accommodates about 800 departures a day.

(a) How many acres of forest are needed to generate the oxygen that O'Hare departures burn in their first five minutes of flight per day?

(b) What percentage of Illinois' land area does this represent? (Useful Facts: The area of Illinois is 57,914 square miles. A mile is 5,280 feet and an acre is 43,560 square feet.​

Answer 1

a. 2,933,600 acres and b. about 7.91%

Explanation:

(a)

To find out how many acres of forest are needed to generate the oxygen that O'Hare departures burn in their first five minutes of flight per day, we first need to calculate the amount of oxygen burned in the first five minutes of one departure, and then multiply it by the number of departures at O'Hare per day.

Given that one commercial airliner burns as much oxygen as 44,000 acres of forest produce in one day, we need to find the oxygen burned in 5 minutes.

There are 60 minutes in an hour, so there are 1/12 (5/60) of an hour in 5 minutes. Therefore, the oxygen burned in 5 minutes is 1/12 of what's burned in an hour.

So, the oxygen burned in 5 minutes of one departure is (1/12) * 44,000 acres = 3,667 acres.

Now, we need to calculate the total oxygen burned by 800 departures per day:

Total oxygen burned by 800 departures = 800 departures * 3,667 acres/departure

Total oxygen burned by 800 departures = 2,933,600 acres

So, O'Hare departures burn oxygen from approximately 2,933,600 acres of forest in their first five minutes of flight per day.

(b)

To find out what percentage of Illinois' land area this represents, we first need to convert the total acres to square miles, and then calculate the percentage.

1 acre = 1/640 square mile (since 1 square mile contains 640 acres).

So, the total acres in square miles is:

2,933,600 acres * (1/640) square miles/acre = 4,587.5 square miles

Now, we can calculate the percentage of Illinois' land area:

Percentage = (Total acres in square miles / Total land area of Illinois) * 100

Percentage = (4,587.5 square miles / 57,914 square miles) * 100

Percentage ≈ 7.91%

So, the oxygen burned by O'Hare departures in their first five minutes of flight represents approximately 7.91% of Illinois' land area.