Question

Aisha and Jordan have 5 pieces of wood that are each 12 feet long. They plan to use 2 of the 12-feet-long pieces of wood for the sides of a ladder. They need to cut the remaining pieces to make the rungs of the ladder. The ladder will have 16 rungs. Each rung is 1.6 feet long.

Aisha says they don’t have enough wood to make the ladder. Jordan says they do. Use estimation to determine who is correct. Show your work and justify your answer.

Answer 1

12 feet ÷ 1.6 feet = 7.5

That means that they will get 7 rungs out of each of the remaining wood pieces, since they can't use half a rung.

3 x 7 = 21

They only need 16 rungs, and they have 21, so Jordan is correct.