Final answer:
To find the actual height of the strawberry represented by the sculpture, a proportion is used where 10 feet in the sculpture equals 1 inch of actual strawberry height. The sculpture's height of 15 feet yields an actual strawberry height of 1.5 inches.
Step-by-step explanation:
The student is asking how to determine the actual size of a real strawberry using the scale of a sculpture. The sculpture in Strawberry Point, Iowa, is 15 feet tall and uses a scale where 10 feet represents 1 inch of actual strawberry size. To find the actual height of the strawberry, we set up a proportion where the height of the sculpture (15 feet) corresponds to the actual height (x inches), and the scale 10 feet corresponds to 1 inch.
The proportion looks like this: 10 feet / 1 inch = 15 feet / x inches. By cross-multiplying we get: 10x = 15 or x = 15/10, which simplifies to x = 1.5 inches. Therefore, the actual strawberry that the sculpture represents would be 1.5 inches tall.