Real-Life Math
You are a university basketball coach whose team just came back
from a 3-day road trip. It was a good road trip. You won 2 of the 3 games
-- your season is going well so far. You sit down at your desk, exhausted.
Now,
the dirty work begins. It is time to do the part of the job you hate. You
open your briefcase and dump out the receipts that you collected. You must
fill out the expense forms so the university can reimburse you for debts you
incurred during the trip.
"[Math] is used in budgeting and day-to-day
duties," says basketball coach Scott Clark. "I have expense forms when we
go on the road. I have to manage money, and when I come back I have to fill
out a form which states how much money I spent on a hotel, on a car, entertainment,
food, parking, gas, etc."
The hotel bill is mixed up with gas receipts,
which are mixed with the food bills. It takes you forever to sort out all
the bills you collected over the 3 days, and now you have to calculate it.
Here are your facts:
| Hotel for 3 days | $10,000 |
| Transportation | $5,000 |
| Entertainment | $2,500 |
| Food | $1,000 |
However, since you traveled to Canada for this road
trip, these costs are all in Canadian dollars. You have to convert it to American
dollars before you can add up the final costs. The exchange rate is $1.25
Cdn to $1 US. Then you have to fill in the expense forms and send them to
the accounting department.