Question

When on vacation in the Bahamas, Leilani went under water and on land. She recorded the depths above and below sea level where she found different sea creatures.

Creature Depth above or below sea level

Hermit crab -2ft

Clam 0ft

Snapper -13ft

Redfish -20ft


(a) List three creatures in order from deepest to highest.

(b) Write a comparison statement for the depth for the hermit crab and the snapper using <, > or =.

Answer 1

`a) Redfish\\Snapper\\Clam`

`b)-13ft>-2ft` (The depth of snapper is greater than the depth of the hermit crab)

Explanation:

The positive numbers are greater than zero and the negative number are less than zero.

By definition when the digit of any negative number gets bigger, the negative number actually gets smaller.

When we talk about depth, when the digit of the negative number gets bigger, means the depth is greater.

a) Let be 0 the sea level.

Based on the explained before, we can list the following three creatures from deepest to highest:

`Redfish\\Snapper\\Clam`

b) Notice that the depth of the hermit crab is:

`Hermit\ crab=-2ft`

And the depth of the snapper is:

`Snapper=-13ft`

Then:

`-13ft>-2ft` (The depth of snapper is greater than the depth of the hermit crab)