Quandaries and Queries
 


How many acres are in .17 square miles? and How many acres are in .6 square miles?

submitted by Richard
Middle School Teacher in Lumberton ,Tx.

The two areas I am requesting information about are Vatican City and San Marino, the two smallest countries in the world. If I can transfer the sq. miles into acres , I can relate the size of these countries to our school grounds and the students will better understand their sizes.



Hi Richard,

That's a nice idea, relating the size to the size of something that your students are familar with.

There are 640 acre in a square mile so

Vatican City: 640 0.17 = 108.8 acres and San Marino: 640 0.6 = 384 acres

I expect that both of these are much larger than your school grounds. Here is an alternate suggestion. Find a map of Lumberton ,Tx. I found one at Switchboard.com. If you look at that map, at the lower left is a scale. It shows a lenght that is 0.4 miles. (On my screen it is about one inch long.) If you cut out a square of paper with sides that measure that length then the area of the square will be 0.4  0.4 = 0.16 square miles which is approximately the area of Vatican City. You can then place the square on the map to see how large that area is.

I hope this helps,
Penny


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