Kelly and Greta are asked to write an equation for the scenario below.
“One person was able to plant 4 trees in the same amount of time that 5 people working together were able to plant 20 trees.”
The girls agree that x represents the number of people working and y represents the number of trees planted. Kelly wrote the equation y = one-fourth x, and Greta wrote the equation y = 4 x. Which person is correct, and why?
The variable that is lower in each scenario is the variable that should have a coefficient (unless there are fractions). Greta's equation makes sense because it's saying that in order for the # of trees to = the # of people, you need to multiply x by 4, or 4x.
