Real-Life Math
You are a research coordinator for a university genetics program.
Currently, you are organizing a program for 20 graduate students to study
genetics using drosophilae (fruit flies) and corn.
You
need to organize the research so that students learn as much as possible,
but won't carve too much out of your limited research budget. First, you need
to figure out what supplies you will need for the experiment.
"Research
coordinators need to juggle all kinds of statistics and numbers to make sure
that a project has enough supplies, data and funding to carry it through,"
says Ruth Pryor, a research coordinator.
Each experiment will need
120 fruit flies and 8 corn cobs.
1. If you let each student
conduct their own experiment, how many fruit flies and corn cobs will you
need?
2. You decide to have the students work at the experiments
in groups to reduce the number of supplies you will need. You divide the students
so that there are no more than 3 people to a group. How many fruit flies and
corn cobs will you need?