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.
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 find the board that Mia will use for the length of the shelter, we need to convert the desired length of 3.25 feet into inches. Since 1 foot is equal to 12 inches, we can multiply 3.25 by 12 to find the length in inches: 3.25 feet * 12 inches/foot = 39 inches.
The board that measures 39 inches in length will be used for the length of the shelter.
To find the width of the shelter in feet, we need to convert the width from inches to feet. Since 1 foot is equal to 12 inches, we can divide the width in inches by 12 to find the width in feet: 39 inches / 12 inches/foot = 3.25 feet.
The width of the shelter is 3.25 feet.
To find out how many feet of board Mia needs to cut off to match the width of the shelter, we can subtract the desired width of 3.25 feet from the length of the third board, which is 42 inches.
To convert 42 inches into feet, we divide by 12: 42 inches / 12 inches/foot = 3.5 feet.
So Mia needs to cut off 3.5 feet - 3.25 feet = 0.25 feet of board to match the width of the shelter.