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Challenge Question #1

mes (mes@yosemite.net)
Mon, 10 Nov 1997 10:53:35 -0800

Our class worked on making a prediction for how many butterflies we
thought were being
sent to Mexico. We estimated that the answer was 58,906 butterflies.
To do this, we
divided the class into 8 table groups. First, our group took 2 numbers
in between 55 and
70, 62 and 63, for how many envelopes there were in the bag and
multiplied them by how
many mailbags there were, 30. Then, we multiplied the answers by 30,
how many
butterflies in each envelope. Then, when we got the answers, 56,700
and 55,800 we
added each answer together. Then, to find the average, we divided our
sum by how many
numbers we added, 2, and got 56,250. However the other seven teams got
different
answers from 54,000 to 73,000, depending on how many envelopes they
multiplied by.
So the class decided to take an average of all the answers. We found
out that group 5
got the best estimate. We found that by writing all the groups
estimates and adding them
all up we would find the answer, 471,250. So we divided 471,250 by 8,
the number of
groups we had. We got the average of 58,906 butterflies.
-Jacob, Alaina, and Heather
Mariposa Elementary School,
Mariposa, CA