Question

Eden is working on an experiment for her science fair project. She is planting a total of 10 herbs for an herb garden. She is going to plant basil and mint. The basil plants cost $.50 per plant and the mint plants cost $.25 per plant. Eden has a total of $3 to spend on plants because she also has to purchase potting soil and a long planter pot. Write a system of equations and solve either using elimination or substitution.

Answer 1

A system of equations for this problem can be written as:

x + y = 10 (1) equation for the total number of herbs planted

0.50x + 0.25y = 3 (2) equation for the total cost of the herbs

Where x is the number of basil plants and y is the number of mint plants.

Using substitution, we can solve the system of equations.

Solving equation (1) for x, we get x = 10 - y

Substituting this into equation (2) we get:

0.50(10 - y) + 0.25y = 3

5 - 0.50y + 0.25y = 3

5 = 0.75y + 3

0.75y = -2

y = -2/0.75 = -8/3

So, Eden planted -8/3 mint plants, which doesn't make sense, as a fraction of plant are not possible. This implies that either the number of plants or the amount spent are incorrect or something is missing in the problem description.