Atlantia Aquarian

12/4/17

Growth of Rat Populations

Problem Statement:
We start with one female mouse, named Mamma, and she has 3 babies every 40 days which I am
calling 1 period. It takes 120 days or 3 periods for her babies to mature, after which a mature
mouse will have 3 babies every 1 period. Find the amount of one mice there will be in 1 year, which
is 9 periods. Finally there is 1 male mouse for every female mouse.

Visual Representation:

Process:
First we drew a diagram, where purple dots were adult mice, and orange dots were baby mice. That
was pretty easy for the first 4 periods. On the 4th period, Mamma Mouses first set of babies grows
up and gives her grandmice, 3 grandmice, per daughtermice, for a total of 9 grandmice, and Mamma
has 3 more babies. On the next period (5), Mammas first set of daughters gives her 9 more
grandmice, and her second set of daughters matures and gives her 9 grandmice, and Mamma has 3
more babies. We kept track of total number of mice, babies and adults, in a table to look for patterns
to save us from the monstrosity of diagrams, but alas, it yielded no worthwhile results. Hence, we
resumed the tedium of drawing diagrams, with increased frustration on the part of a fair sir named
Ethan.
About this point, we noticed that on each period, you add in one more complicated, new diagram,
and everything else stays the same and gets pushed over. So, if you know the total number of mice
in the period before, all you need to do is draw the first diagram and add it to the previous periods
total. We kept doing that until we had a total for the 8th period, we drew the first diagram for the
9th period, and added it to the total from period 8. To make counting faster we would count groups
of three and then have the magical magician mathematician, Ethan, do the calculations in his
internal calculator (ie. brain).

Solution:
To find the final solution, we counted the total in the 7th period, which was 139. We drew the first
diagram for the 8th period, which was 139, we added that to 139 to get 268, the number of mice in
the 8th period. Then, we drew the 9th diagram on top of the 8th diagram (to make it easier), and
found that it added 219 mice. We added 219 and 268 (the 8th period total) and got 487. After 9
periods there will be 487 female mice. The original problem, asked for total mice, if there is 1 male
per female, so we multiplied by 2, which was 947.

To check, we subtracted 1 (Mamma Mouse) from 487 to get 486. If we did everything right, 486,
should be divisible by 3, because mice, excluding Mamma, were always in groups of 3. Ethan said
486 is divisible by 3. So we did it right.

Evaluation: This POW had a lot going on, there were some many mice to keep track of. If you miss
counted or missed a set of babies then automatically the answer would be incorrect. In order to find
the right answer you needed to keep your work organized and labeled. To help make this easier for
me I labeled the amount of days into periods. Like I talked about in the problem statement, 40 days
equals 1 period, 120 days equals 3 periods and 1 year equals 9 periods.

Overall I enjoyed this POW, maybe even more than any of the other ones. I like how Allee and I
drew out the problem as we solved it, that helped me understand the how each mice matured and
had babies. For me personally having anything drawn out visually helps me understand what is
going on. This POW was pretty challenging, but for sure not the most challenging out of all of the
POWs we have had. It was hard because there was so much to keep track of and there was just a lot
going on in the POW. It was also difficult because I didnt find a pattern and the only way to find the
answer was to keep drawing out the dots.

Self-Assessment:
I think that I deserve an A because the method I used to find the answer worked and makes sense.
Not to mention that this POW took a good amount of time, and I am proud of my final answer and
the work I put into it.