Final answer:
To find the number of ceramic tiles needed, convert the classroom floor area to square centimeters and then divide by the area of a single tile. The example provided calculates it for a classroom floor of 12.0 square meters, requiring 375,000 tiles.
Step-by-step explanation:
If each ceramic tile has an area of 0.32 square centimeters, to cover a classroom floor measured in square meters, we first need to convert the area of the floor from square meters to square centimeters. To do this, we need to use conversion factors, understanding that 1 square meter is equivalent to 10,000 square centimeters. After conversion, we can divide the area of the floor in square centimeters by the area of a single ceramic tile to find the total number of tiles needed.
For example, a classroom floor area of 12.0 square meters has an uncertainty of 3 percent, which when expressed as an area, is 0.36 m² and rounded to 0.4 m² since the area of the floor is given to a tenth of a square meter. To cover the given area, you would first convert 12.0 m² to cm² (1 m² = 10,000 cm²), yielding 120,000 cm². Then, divide this by 0.32 cm² (the area of one tile) to get the required number of tiles, which would be 375,000 tiles.