Mia is building a three-sided shelter for her action figures. The shelter will resemble a rectangle with one of the long sides removed. She has boards that measure 36 inches, 39 inches, and 42 inches in length; all the boards are the same width. Mia will need to convert some of these measurements into other imperial units to build the shelter the way she wants. Answer the following questions. Show your work.
Mia will use one of these boards for the length of the shelter. She knows she wants the length of the shelter to measure 3.25 feet. She will use a different board for the width of the shelter. The width of the shelter will be shorter than the length.
Which board will Mia use for the length of the shelter, given that 1 foot = 12 inches?
What is the width of the shelter, measured in feet?
Mia needs to cut the third board to match the width of the shelter. How many feet of board will she need to cut off the existing board to reach this goal?
To determine which board Mia will use for the length of the shelter, we need to find the board that is closest to 39 inches, which is equivalent to (39/12) = 3.25 feet. So Mia should use the board that measures 39 inches for the length of the shelter.
The width of the shelter will be shorter than the length. Since the length is 3.25 feet, we need to find a board that is shorter than this. Looking at the available options, the board that measures 36 inches is the shortest. We can convert this measurement to feet by dividing it by 12: (36/12) = 3 feet. Therefore, the width of the shelter is 3 feet.
To determine how many feet of board Mia needs to cut off the third board to match the width of the shelter, we need to find the difference between the length of the board and the width of the shelter. The third board measures 42 inches, which is equivalent to (42/12) = 3.5 feet. Subtracting the width of the shelter from the length of the board, we get: 3.5 feet - 3 feet = 0.5 feet. Mia needs to cut off 0.5 feet of board to match the width of the shelter.