Kiara baked 12 oatmeal cookies and 16 chocolate chip cookies to package in plastic containers for her friends at school. She wants to divide the cookies into identical containers so that each container has the same number of each kind of-sookie. If she wants each container to have the greatest number of cookies possible, how many containers does she need?
the HCF of 12 and 16 is 4
so 4 containers will do it, with
number of oatmeal cookies in each to be 3, and the number of choc. cookies to be 4.
the number of cookies in each container would be 7
BUT, she could also have 2 containers, with
6 oatmeals and 8 choc chips cookies in each.
Then the number of cookies in each would be 14
So I would say 2 containers for the greatest number of cookies in each.
To find out how many containers Kiara needs, we first need to determine the common factor or the greatest common divisor of 12 and 16, which represents the maximum number of cookies that can be evenly distributed into each container.
One way to find the greatest common divisor is by listing the factors of both numbers and finding the largest one.
The factors of 12 are: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 12.
The factors of 16 are: 1, 2, 4, 8, and 16.
From the common factors listed above, we see that the largest factor both numbers share is 4. This means that each container can hold up to 4 oatmeal cookies and 4 chocolate chip cookies.
To determine the number of containers, we divide the total number of cookies by the maximum number of cookies that can be evenly distributed into each container.
For each container, Kiara will need 4 oatmeal cookies + 4 chocolate chip cookies = 8 cookies in total.
The total number of cookies Kiara baked is 12 oatmeal cookies + 16 chocolate chip cookies = 28 cookies.
To figure out the number of containers needed, we divide the total number of cookies (28) by the number of cookies per container (8):
28 ÷ 8 = 3.5
Since we cannot have half a container, we need to round up to the next whole number. Therefore, Kiara will need 4 containers in total.
So, Kiara needs 4 containers to evenly distribute the cookies among her friends at school.