Question

Owners of a recreation area are filling a small pond with water. They are adding water at a rate of 26 liters per minute.There are 400 liters in the pond to start.Let W represent the total amount of water in the pond (in liters), and let T represent the total number of minutes that waterhas been added. Write an equation relating W to T. Then use this equation to find the total amount of water after 17minutes.

Answer 1

The situation described in the problem can be model with a linear equation, this comes from the fact that the rate in which the pond fills is constant.

A linear equation has the form:

`w=mt+b`

where m is the rate, in this case 26, and b is the initial amount of water in the pond, in this case 400. Therefore the equation we are looking for is:

`w=26t+400`

After 17 minutes, that is t=17, we have:

`w=26(17)+400=842`

liters. Therefore after 17 minutes the ponds has 842 liters.