Problem Analysis Paper #1

Martinez, Ivanna

The Problem
How many steps would you take to finish a journey of 1000 miles? What information do
you need in order to answer this question?
Your Approach
What I did was I first had to figure out how many feet were in 1 mile (5280 ft.), once I
knew that I could get started with my problem. I had measured 1 foot with the measuring wheel
outside on the floor. I then took steps to see how many I could take in 1 foot. I got 2 steps. When
I did that I multiplied 5280 x 2 since it would tell me how many steps i’d take in 5280 feet which
is 1 mile. Once I got my answer (10560) I multiplied that by 1000 since in one mile I took 10560
and I needed to know how much I got in 1000 miles. My final answer was 10,560,000.
Your Calculations
5280 ft - 1 mile
2 steps in 1 ft.
5280 x 2 = 10,560 steps in 1 mile
10560 steps x 1000 miles = 10,560,000
Assumptions/Estimates
One thing that I tried was with the measuring wheel was measuring 5280 feet but that
was too much so I just did 1 foot. What I did like I had explained before was I figured out how
many steps I could take in 1 foot. I guess something that I could have done so it could have been
a little more accurate was to do it a couple more times and see if every time it'd be 2 steps. But
overall I think that the work I did, my assumptions and my estimate were good.
Synthesis
Well in doing this problem I didn't really get stuck because it wasn't that hard for me to
do. I think that the answer I got was pretty good because I did everything I was supposed to do
and found out what I had to find and I think it was accurate. Well the concepts that I used and I
think you'll need for this problem are really just multiplication and also finding out how many
feet are in a mile, unit conversions.