Sunday, September 27, 2015

Math is Real Life: Setting Up a Fish Tank

It's that time again, time for Math is Real Life.



It's time to downgrade my big fish tank. I only have two of the original ten fish left.  They died of old old age, by the way. So I got out the little fish tank I use for transportation. 

It had been about five years since I last used it, so I didn't exactly remember how many gallons it held.  I estimated that it would take about three gallons to fill. I even put it beside my Keurig, which takes about a gallon, for reference. 



So, off to the cupboard I went to get the gallons of water usually kept in there, but my hubby apparently didn't tell me we were down to one gallon. Oh, well. I poured it in to see how much it would fill before running to the store. 

One gallon filled the tank almost halfway. 



So, I needed to revise my original estimate of it being a three-gallon tank. It would only take about another gallon to almost completely fill it, which is a total of two gallons. Still, the scientist in me was screaming, "Buy two more gallons, just in case!".  It's better to be over-prepared than unprepared. 

Turns out, 2 gallons did the trick. 




So, with a little estimation and trial-and-error, I got my math on.  It's true, Math is Real Life!  If you want to join the link-up and share your real-life math experiences, click here.

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