The purpose of this activity is to support students in finding the multiplicative ‘operator’ that connects the numbers in two rates to find an unknown value. The operator may apply within measures or between measures strategies.
Between Strategy
Next steps
Explore finding the multiplication relationship between two numbers outside of rate contexts. Missing multiplier problems are often phased as “times as many”. For example:
Moana collects 24 pinecones, and Nel collects 16 pinecones. How many times Nel’s number has Moana collected?
Since 24 ÷ 16 = 1.5 Moana collected “one- and one-half times as many” pinecones as Nel.
Since 16 ÷ 24 = 0.6 we can say that Nel collected “two thirds as many” pinecones as Moana.
The key generalisation is that a ÷ b = □ gives the operator □, such that □ x b = a.
Calculators can be used to easily show the generalisation. In more complex rate problems, finding the multiplicative operator between numbers is fundamental to solving the problems.
Printed from https://nzmaths.co.nz/resource/applying-multiplication-and-division-rates at 10:58am on the 6th May 2024