The owner of a pool cleaning business wants to know how much time, on average, his workers spend cleaning a pool. Last week, 7 employees each worked a 6-hour shift. In all, they cleaned 42 pools. Which is the most appropriate unit to calculate a answer to his question?

A. pools per employee
B. pools per day
C. employees per pool
D. hours per pool

And your answer is?

wants to know how much time,

What is the TIME in your answer?

To determine how much time, on average, the workers spend cleaning a pool, we need to find the ratio of total hours worked to the number of pools cleaned. This will give us the average time spent per pool.

Given that 7 employees worked a 6-hour shift and cleaned 42 pools, we can use unit ratios to find the most appropriate unit for the answer.

Option A: pools per employee - This unit ratio would give us the number of pools each employee cleaned, which is not what we need.

Option B: pools per day - The number of pools cleaned per day would not provide us with the average time spent cleaning each pool.

Option C: employees per pool - This unit ratio would give us the number of employees needed to clean each pool, which is not what we need.

Option D: hours per pool - This unit ratio is what we are looking for. It will give us the average time spent cleaning each pool.

Therefore, the most appropriate unit to calculate the answer to the owner's question is D. hours per pool.