Did you know that an ant can carry 50 times its own body weight? Or that ants (especially queen ants) live longer than any other insect? Ants are amazing! Have you ever wondered what it would be like if ants went to school?

This week we take that idea of ants going to school and use it as the basis for a fun word problem challenge! Practice elementary school math skills and middle school math skills such as fractions, multiplication, division, scale, and converting inches to feet as you solve this unique real world math problem!

Go ahead and check out the question below. Don’t stress, take your time, and be sure to check back tomorrow for the solution.

Question: An ant is 1/16 of an inch tall. A middle school student is 41/2 feet tall. The student goes to a learning center that is 54 feet tall. If we scale by height, then how tall would a learning center for ants be?

Why should we care about pi? The number 3.14… may be irrational, but it can be found all over the natural world. It appears everywhere there's a circle, such as the disk of the sun, planets, and even the earth. Pi is in the physics that describes waves, such as light and sound. Pi even appears in the spiral of the DNA double helix!

Q: Why did the computer keep sneezing?
A: It had a virus!

All joking aside, if you use a computer, you are directly benefiting from math in action! Whether it’s in the creation of hardware, programming of software, or distribution of the final product, math is there every step of the way. At Mathnasium we know that in our current high-tech world, students who have a good understanding of middle school math and high school math are more likely to succeed in whatever they choose to do!

This week’s word problem challenge gives students the opportunity to practice math skills such as fractions, multiplication and division by applying their knowledge and logic to a real world math problem. We know you can do it! Check out the question and take your time working out the answer. Be sure to check below to compare your solution to ours!

Question: Stan is running a computer program to scan all the memory on a computer. When the program is ¾ done with its scan, it has 12 minutes left to run. How long does it take the computer program to scan the computer in total?

Solution: If the program is done scanning ¾ of the computer’s memory, then it has ¼ left. Since we know that it takes 12 minutes to scan ¼ of the memory, it takes 12 × 4 = 48 minutes to scan the whole thing.