Subject: making and using equations
Who are you: Student (Secondary)

Brooke
secondary (10-12)
student

the questions says to :

write an equation to model the relationship between these variables. Define the variables you use, and refer to your notes for a variety of formats of equations we have studied this year.

week 1: 3 birds infected
week 2: 15 birds infected
week 3: 75 birds infected
week 4: 375 birds infected

1) how do i figure out what the equation is?
2) with the equation can i figure out how many birds would be infected in 52 years without multiplying a ton of times?

Hi Brooke. When you get into more advanced science experiments, figuring out an equation from a series of measurements is a major part of your work!

Fortunately, in your question, it is not too hard to see the relationship between the numbers:
Start with 3.
3 times 5 is 15.
15 times 5 is 75.
75 times 5 is 375.

Do you see the pattern? You can write the general equation using the number of weeks as an exponent. Then you can figure out the number of bird infections in 52 weeks (or years, if you wish!)

Hope this helps,
Stephen La Rocque.