How Big Is The 2010 Guatemalan Sinkhole?

robertkaplinsky.com/work/sink-hole/

The Situation
In 2010, an enormous sinkhole (pictured below) suddenly appeared in the middle of a Guatemalan neighborhood
and swallowed a three-story building above it.
The Challenge(s)
How much material will they need to fill the sinkhole?
How much will it cost to fill the sinkhole in?

Question(s) To Ask
These questions may be useful in helping students down the problem solving path:
What is a guess that is too low?
What is a guess that is too high?
What is your best guess?
What information do we need to know to figure this out?

Consider This
The first thing a person should think when they see this photo is There is no way this is real! or This is totally
PhotoShopped! That is what makes the photo so amazing because it is completely real and documented by many
reputable sources such as National Geographic, Time Magazine, and CNN. Each of these articles can explain why
and how the sinkhole (technically called a piping pseudokarst) happened better than I can, so I will focus on the
math involved.
One of the sinkholes amazing properties is how incredibly cylindrical it is. The other thing I find striking is how deep
it appears. It looks like it goes down and never stops. I wouldnt be surprised if students thought it might go all the
way through the Earth and come out on the other side (which apparently is not China but actually in the middle of
the Indian Ocean). In actuality it does stop and this video below shows that better.
All the challenges revolve around knowing the sinkholes dimensions, however its reported dimensions vary. You
can have students discuss the three reported options and debate to find the one that is most reasonable or skip this
step and go with CNN article I have included (which I believe has the most accurate dimensions):

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National Geographic: 60 feet (18 meters) wide and about 30 stories deep (assuming a story is about 10
feet, then about 300 feet deep)
Time Magazine: runs some 200 ft. deep
CNN: The 20-meter (about 66 feet) diameter sinkhole is about 30 meters (about 100 feet) deep.
Slate: A sinkhole, 65 feet across and 100 feet deep
I think it is worth having students reflect on how reasonable these estimates are. Here are some of my thoughts:
National Geographic, CNN, and Slate seem to agree that the diameter is about 20 meters, so that is what I
will assume.
The depth measurement varies from 100 feet to 200 feet to 300 feet. Obviously that is a huge difference.
The pictures dont seem to be helpful in determining the depth.
Looking at the video, the sinkhole looks to be a little more than 1.5 times deeper than it is wide. So, that
seems to match up with the CNN and Slate measurements.
Going forward with dimensions of diameter of 66 feet and depth of 100 feet, we can use the formula for the volume
of a cylinder: pi * radius^2 * height. That gives us pi * 33^2 & 100 cubic feet or approximately 342,119.45 cubic feet.
Interestingly, Slate appears to have made a mathematical error in their reporting (below)

The only way I see how they could get 6,500 cubic feet as an answer using their reported dimensions of 65 feet in
diameter and 100 feet in depth is to multiply 65 by 100. Clearly that is not correct. This is a great opportunity for
students to double check the validity of their answer and defend their reasoning.
Update: I actually contacted the articles author and he replied Apparently you picked the wrong article for a math
lesson! I apologize. It appears you are correct. So, it is an example of how even professionals make silly mistakes
and how we have to check our work to make sure it is reasonable. Using low, high, and best guesses is helpful for
this.
The next challenge is How much will it cost to fill the sinkhole in?. Obviously a lot of assumptions need to be
made. Slate reported that in 2007 Guatemala filled a larger sinkhole (about 330 feet deep) with concrete. So, using
that information:
A cubic foot of concrete currently costs about $4. $4 * 342,119.45 costs about $1,368,477.80. That obviously does
not include labor, material transportation, or really anything besides the concrete itself. The price of concrete also
varies, so it would be reasonable for the total cost to be somewhere between $1 and $2 million. In the Slate
example, the previous sinkhole cost $2.7 million so this seems like a reasonable estimate.

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What You'll Need

Wide view of the sinkhole and the city

View of the sinkhole with the helicopters shadow in the hole.

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Close view of the sinkhole

Close view of the sinkhole

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Close view of the sinkhole

Student Work
Below are medium and high work samples for the challenge. The only issues I had with the medium work samples
were missing or incorrect units.
Medium

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Medium

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High

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High

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High

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Content Standard(s)
CCSS 8.G.9 Know the formulas for the volumes of cones, cylinders, and spheres and use them to solve
real-world and mathematical problems.

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CCSS G-GMD.3 Use volume formulas for cylinders, pyramids, cones, and spheres to solve problems.
CCSS G-MG.1 Use geometric shapes, their measures, and their properties to describe objects (e.g.,
modeling a tree trunk or a human torso as a cylinder).

Acknowledgements
This problem would not exist without Katies submission on 101qs.com (a website created by Dan Meyer). This
picture was begging to be explored in more depth (no pun intended) and led to this lesson. Thanks to both of them
and all math educators who share their hard work.
Source(s)
101qs.com
National Geographic
Time Magazine
CNN
Slate
Wikipedia
What is on the other side of the world from Guatemala?
YouTube
Location of sinkhole on Google Maps

Download
Download Lesson Files

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