Question

Each spring, Bill's yard has about 950 square feet of space to cover with mulch. One year, trying to save some cash, Bill bought cheapo overseas mulch from a gas station, and the packaging said that each bag covered 1.8 square meters. How many bags did Bill need

Answer 1

161 bags

Explanation:

Since we need to know how many square feet a bag can cover, we need to convert the 1.8 square meters to feet. A meter is about 3 feet and 3.5 inches, so to find how many bags he needs we need to convert the bag into feet. First lets convert the meter into inches:

`(3*12)+3.5\\(36)+3.5 = 39.5`

Remember that a foot is 12 inches. Now, we need to multiply the 39.5 inches by 1.8 to find out how many square inches a bag holds.

`39.5*1.8 = 71.1`

We need square feet though, so let's divide our 71.1 inches by 12 to get a foot measurement.

`71.1/12=5.93`

A bag holds 5.93 square feet of mulch. Now, to figure out how many bags he needs, we need to divide 950 (total area to cover) by 5.93 (area each bag covers).

`950/5.93=160.2`

Since Bill cant buy a fifth of a bag, we need to round up so he has enough. So, Bill needs 161 bags of mulch to cover his yard.