Real-Life Math
You are a crop sprayer and you are going to spray a dry granular
pesticide over a large field. But before you take off, you need to know how
much pesticide you will need to cover the crops.
"At one time, math
was really critical," says Donald Wander, a crop sprayer. "You would be sitting
out in the middle of the field mixing chemicals, and you would have to get
the measurements right."
Now, much of the process is automated. However,
crop sprayers still need to measure products and calculate field sizes.
You
are going to dust a field with a dry, granular material. To spread the material,
you will divide the field into 40 swaths that are each 30 feet wide. (This
means that you will fly over the field 40 times, each time covering a strip
of the field that is 30 feet wide). The field is 1,500 feet long.
Remember
that there are 43,560 square feet in an acre.
1. Use the following
formula to calculate how many acres you will cover in this field.
Acres covered = number of swaths x field length x swath width / 43,560 square
feet per acre
2. How many pounds of material will you need
for the entire field if you use 20 pounds per acre?
Pounds
of material = pounds per acre x acres covered