Mow A Lawn
Objective
Students will convert between multiple measurements and calculate area per hour to estimate how long it will take to mow a large lawn.
More info about Central Park's Great Lawn and the Sheep Meadow. And a hat tip to What If for the inspiration.
Steps
- Students begin by identifying what information they'll need to know. Then they will try to find that info. We're going for a rough estimate here, so they really only need to know the size of the Great Lawn, the speed they will walk, and the width of their mower.
- Next, they convert all of their units into feet and square feet (feel free to adapt this however you'd like).
- Now, they calculate how many square feet of grass they can mow in one hour and then determine how long it would take to mow the whole lawn.
- As an extension, students can pick a new mower and a new speed and re-calculate their time. Alternate speeds could include: world's fastest mile time, fastest land animal, student's sprinting speed, backwards walking speed, etc.
- Finally, they can pick a new lawn, determine the measurements, and decide how long that lawn would take to mow.