To represent the situation with an inequality, we first need to define some variables. Let's say the teacher plans to order meals for each student, and we let \( x \) represent the cost of one meal.
If the teacher has up to $180 to spend, we can represent the total cost of \( n \) meals (where \( n \) is the number of students) as \( n \times x \). The inequality that describes the amount the teacher can spend is:
\[ n \cdot x \leq 180 \]
This inequality shows that the total cost of meals (the product of the number of meals and the cost per meal) should be less than or equal to $180.
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