Question

Savannah is painting a striped background for a mural on a wall that is 15 yards long. She wants a total of 96 stripes that are all the same width. Which calculation should Savannah use to decide how wide to make each stripe?

Answer 1

Making all of the stripes the same with means that we divide 15 yards by the 96 stripes:

15/96 = 0.15625 yards per stripe

There are 3 feet in every yard; this means that each stripe would be

0.15625(3) = 0.46875 foot

There are 12 inches in every foot; this means that each stripe would be

0.46875(12) = 5.625 inches

This is 5 5/8 inches per stripe.

Answer 2

She should divide the length of the wall by the number of strips.

Explanation:

We want each of our 96 stripes to be just wide enough so that all 96 of them cover the 15 yards long mural with no spaces left. To find the necessary width
`w` of the stripes, we just need to divide the length of the wall by the number of stripes:

`w=(15yards)/(96) =0.15625\:yards`

This gives a width of 0.15625 yards for each stripe.