Goats eat just about anything: meat, veggies, cardboard, clothing – and plain old grass, too. That’s why the company Goats R Us is so smart: they use goats to mow people’s lawns. Goats R Us owns hundreds of goats, and places like airports and big companies hire those goats to keep their grass nice and short. Goats eat for around 6 hours per day – we bet you can’t chew veggies that long!
Wee ones: If you’re in charge of 6 goats, what numbers do you say to count them? Put 6 things on the counter and count them up.
Little kids: If the goats start their job in June and finish the next month, in what month do they finish? Bonus: If it takes them exactly 2 months to eat through all of Berkeley Lab, how many times can they clear the lawn in 1 year? (Hint if needed: A year has 12 months.)
Big kids: If the goats take 5 weeks to eat through the lab’s whole space, how many days is that? Bonus: How many hooves do those 800 trotting goats have?
The sky’s the limit: If the perimeter (the distance around the edge) of a rectangular field is 40 feet, and the sides are all round numbers of feet, what’s the biggest area of grass it could hold for the goats to eat?
Answers:
Wee ones: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Little kids: In July. Bonus: 6 times in a year.
Big kids: 35 days. Bonus: 3,200 hooves.
The sky’s the limit: 100 square feet, or 10 feet per side (10+10+10+10). For any amount of edge, the most area it can contain will be the perfect square that uses that amount of fence. So we divide the perimeter by 4 to get the 4 equal sides of a square.