Question

Shannon made a scale drawing of a playground. She used a scale of 1 centimeter to 5 meters. In her drawing, the distance from the slide to the swings is 2 centimeters.
Brian wants to make a scaled drawing of the same playground using a scale of 1 centimeter to 2 meters. In his drawing, what should the distance from the slide to the swings be?
Write your answer as a whole number or decimal.
centimeters

Answer 1

To find the distance from the slide to the swings in Brian's drawing, we first need to determine the actual distance based on Shannon's drawing.

Shannon's scale is 1 centimeter to 5 meters. Since the distance from the slide to the swings in her drawing is 2 centimeters, we can calculate the actual distance:

\[
\text{Actual distance} = \text{Drawing distance} \times \text{Scale Factor}
\]
\[
\text{Actual distance} = 2 \, \text{cm} \times 5 \, \text{m/cm} = 10 \, \text{meters}
\]

Now, we need to convert this actual distance into Brian's scale, which is 1 centimeter to 2 meters. To find the distance in Brian's drawing, we use the same formula:

\[
\text{Drawing distance} = \frac{\text{Actual distance}}{\text{Scale Factor}} = \frac{10 \, \text{meters}}{2 \, \text{m/cm}} = 5 \, \text{centimeters}
\]

Therefore, the distance from the slide to the swings in Brian's drawing should be **5 centimeters**.