Soybean Farmer Math Harder Edition

In an effort to make math more interesting for kids and to make my kids understand that math really is important, I have started a series of Farmer Math questions to go along with the Flat Aggie reports.  These are patterned after the blog Bedtime Math.   This set of questions is a little more challenging than the usual set of questions. 

These questions follow the report Flat Aggie Visits Monsanto.  Additional educational materials can be found in the post About Soybeans.  Some easier soybean math questions can also be found Easiest Math and a little harder math.

1.  Farmers plant 140,000 seeds per acre.  How many seeds are needed to plant 20 acres?

2.  In 2014, 9.8 million acres of soybeans were planted in Illinois and 85.1 million acres were planted in the United States.  What percent of the US soybean acres were planted in Illinois? (Round to the nearest tenth.)

3.  Soybean growers near Ashton, Illinois planted 56,000 acres for soybean seed production.  When planting 140,000 seeds per acre, how many total seeds do they need?

4.  Write the above answer in scientific notation

5.  A seed bag says that it has 2,430 seeds per pound.  The bag has enough seed to plant 40 acres at a rate of 140,000 seeds per acre.  How much does the seed in the bag weigh in all? (Round to the nearest whole number.)

ANSWERS:

1.) 2,800,000 seeds  2.) 11.5%  3.) 7,840,000,000 seeds  4.) 7.84x10^9 seeds  5.)2,304 pounds

If you are a teacher or homeschooler that would like more information to go with the Flat Aggie reports, send me a message on my contact form.  Along with the report and the Farmer Math questions, we send each teacher an additional page of activities, crossword puzzles and sometimes a few hands on activities.

-A Kansas Farm Mom