9/18/08

Rainfall

Lately there have been a lot of talk about Hurricanes wrecking the coastal regions of the US. The latest one on the news is Hurricane Ike. One statistic that I heard about this hurricane was that here in Los Angeles we have had 0.16 inches of rainfall from March 2008 to September 2008, while Hurricane Ike produced 15.75 inches of rain in just a few days in Houston, Texas.

Below are the graphs that show the average precipitation for the two cities from The Weather Channel Click on the image to enlarge it and see the numbers clearer.
Your job is to answer the following questions:
  1. About how many years of average Los Angeles precipitation would equal the rainfall produced by Ike in Houston?
  2. About how many months of average Houston precipitation would equal the rainfall produced by Ike?
Remember to explain how you found the answers to the questions.

Rosario's Dilemma


The following problem was submitted by Rosario.

Today my dad bought a box of chocolates. It contained 48 pieces. If they shared the 48 pieces equally, each of my household members (not including me) would have gotten 9.6 bars. But I want some too. :)

I need your help to figure out exactly how many bars each person should get. And how many people there are in total.

9/5/08

Huntington Park's Population

I was recently browsing the official website of the City of Huntington Park, home of Gage Middle School, and I stumbled upon some demographic information that got me thinking.
According to the site:
  • Total population of HP: 61,348
  • Hispanic population: 58, 636
  • Registered voters: 13,137
These numbers made me wonder about percentages and languages. Your task is to answer the following questions:
  1. What percentage of the residents of Huntington Park are Hispanic?
  2. What percentage of the residents of Huntington Park are registered to vote?
  3. Do you think the large number of Hispanics living in the city means that the city's website should be bilingual? (see poll on the right)
Email me the answers to the first 2 questions. To answer the third, you can respond to the poll on the right.

HINT: To figure out the percents, start by figuring out the fraction (how many Hispanic out of how many total, and how many registered to vote out of how many total) then turn the fraction into a decimal, then a percent. You can use a calculator if you prefer.